Advent
by chezchuckles
Summary: Castle tries to convince Beckett of the magic of the season. A chapter posted every day. COMPLETE
1. November 30:  Waiting for Wednesday

**Advent**

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><p>November 30 - Waiting for Wednesday<p>

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><p>Castle has sent her another stupid app for her phone. This one gives the people in her photo library fat faces, blowing up their necks, chins, cheeks to create their potential fat suit. Castle has sent her a picture of Esposito in his fat face; Kate can't help chuckling to herself as she walks down the hallway of her apartment building.<p>

Since Castle isn't around to see it and gloat. Castle and his stupid apps. The air guitar was ridiculous.

Kate Beckett juggles her iphone as she lets herself into her apartment, at the last second recognizing where she is and who she is. And what she is doing. She pauses in the threshold, the distracting phone in her hand, and tries to breathe through the near-mistake.

There is a sniper out there. Somewhere. And she's smirking at her phone and *forgetting.*

She quickly scans her place. It should be fine; it's usually fine.

But something is off. Wrong. She can feel it.

She shifts slowly backward, dropping her stuff out in the hallway soundlessly, drawing her gun from its holster, clearing her mind. She goes back through the open doorway crouched low to the ground, weapon close, and slowly clears the entry, sweeps the kitchen and living room.

The dining area and table-

And she sees it.

Relaxes.

That man.

He's left her something on her dining room table. Huge. And of course it was him - who else would it be? And how did he get a key?

Kate shuts the front door and then quickly clears her office, crosses the living room to her bedroom, checks it as well. Everything else is in its place. It was just him.

Castle.

She sighs and gets her stuff off the floor of the hallway, gathering up her coat, laptop, and messenger bag, locking and deadbolting the door behind her. A couple days ago, she made the mistake of telling Castle that she liked the holidays, she liked giving gifts, but she wasn't all that big into the songs, the decorations, the fuss made over it. It's not anything to do with grief, although that might be part of it; she's just never gotten into it like other people have.

Well, now he's out to prove her wrong.

Or change her mind. Something.

On her dining room table is a two foot wide, three foot tall flat canvas on which is mounted the facade of a row of Brooklyn apartment buildings, little windows and fire escapes, rooftops with their vents and tarpaper. The canvas is painted pale grey, with cutout white stars and a moon hanging over the replica apartments. The attached buildings are white, pale and modern and monotone, the lines of the bricks grey and uniform. The window frames all have yellow light colored on the frames, as if inside these rooms is warmth, happiness.

It's an Advent calendar; each of the windows is numbered 1 through 25, and she knows she's supposed to open one window each day in December until Christmas.

She pulls out her phone and calls him.

He answers immediately. "You got it?"

"Castle. You gave me a heart attack."

"But a good one, right?"

"Why do I have this?" She unstraps her holster, pulls it off.

"Are you undressing?" he gasps, a little too theatrically.

She pauses just long enough to give him a real reason to gasp, then chuckles. "No. Taking my gun off. Why do I have this in my apartment, Castle?"

"I noticed a distinct lack of enthusiasm for the proper Christmas spirit. Also, as I suspected, you have absolutely no Christmas decorations up."

"It's November. And I don't need an Advent calendar to count down the days-"

"No, but it has presents inside. Plus, any time after Thanksgiving is acceptable. Although I have a tendency to want to decorate right after Halloween."

"Wait. Back up. It does what?"

"Each day you open a window, there's a present inside."

She throws the thing a suspicious glance, her chest tight like her lungs are being squeezed. Her body aches after today's sprint through that cramped warehouse; she smashed into a pallet of ball bearings, of all things, and her ribs ache. "I'm not in the mood for this, Castle. You need to come get this - this - thing and-"

"No. Not-uh. You can't do that. It's your Christmas gift."

"Castle," she grinds out. She can't do this tonight. It's been too much. Too much has happened. Not enough has happened.

"You'll like it. I promise. And I made almost everything. So there's nothing. . .to worry about."

He says it so gently, with such meaning behind the softness and the pauses, that she knows he knows what she's afraid of. And he's assuring her he hasn't gone that far, too far.

And she hates that she's quietly disappointed by that.

She does *not* want to be pushed. No. She wants space. Time. She wants to be more, but she can't do that right now, today, tonight.

And this massive calendar, as gorgeous and simple as it is, as non-Christmassy as it is, just doesn't give her space. (Although. It does give her time, doesn't it?) She can't. She really can't do this.

But this is Castle. And sometimes she has to give him what he needs as well. If she's going to be at all fair about this.

About how there *is* no this, no them. All her fault, her own doing; she is what holds them back.

She's afraid he won't wait for her. She's afraid he will. If she doesn't accept this, then what happens to him?

Kate sighs. "When do I open it?"

He sucks in a breath; she can practically see the childlike delight on his end.

"Castle, if you squeal in my ear, I will-"

"Woot! Sorry, it had to come out." He makes another noise; she can practically see his fist pump over the phone. "Okay, okay, okay. It kinda needs to be something you do in the morning. It won't work out at night. Oh, or, you could open it the night before. That would work, but it's technically cheating I think-"

"Fine. Tomorrow morning. And Castle?"

"Yeah, Kate?"

Her heart flips at her name - it's just her name, for goodness sake - and she stares at the Advent calendar dominating her dining room table.

"Tomorrow morning, I expect you to have my apartment key that you stole in my hand first thing. Got it?"

"Never gonna happen."

He hangs up.


	2. December 1: I Hope This Gets To You

**special thanks to HelenVanPattersonPatton for the best line (and letting me steal it)**

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><p><strong>December 1 - I Hope This Gets To You<strong>

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><p>Kate Beckett is *not* getting up early because she's excited. She's not.<p>

She's nervous. Her scar itches. She's had a sleepless night ever since she found the three-dimensional calendar set up on her dining room table. That's all it is - a restless energy from her talk with Castle last night that wouldn't let her mind turn off. And her scar itches; it keeps her up.

She's not excited.

Kate showers slowly because she has the time this morning (no body call) and because she's trying to prove to herself that she's not afraid. And she's not excited. She pulls on sweats and a raglan tshirt from her days on the NYPD softball team; it's warm and worn. She has a good while yet before she needs to be at the 12th so she can take her time, find something for breakfast.

She turns off the timer on her coffeemaker so she can go ahead and make a pot. While her hair dries, she keeps her eyes off the dining room, putting it carefully out of her mind. Let this be just. . .her own morning. Her space. For a little bit longer.

Kate realizes she's half daydreaming as the coffee percolates, so she heads back to her room and opens her closet door. Her wardrobe has been erratic lately - pantsuits or jeans - just like her hair. She can't seem to find that balance any more. Everything gets twisted; she overreacts at the slightest thing. She wants to be considerate of Castle's - uh - situation, so she's been wearing black and turtlenecks and just-

Being ridiculous. She's being ridiculous.

_Grow up, Kate._

She wants to stop doing this. She wants to be-

Kate rubs her forehead, sighing. She needs to stop overthinking this; she needs to put on clothes because they appeal to her.

She remembers wearing this plaid shirt last year that Castle-

Yeah, that doesn't exactly help, but now that the memory has washed over her, she can't shake the urge to wear it. Castle had reached out and gotten her attention by snagging the cuff of her rolled up sleeve. Tugging.

No. See. She loves that shirt, the purple plaid. *She* loves it, not because of Castle. She can wear black pants and her tallest boots and it will be-

Close to normal again. Almost normal. She needs that.

Kate smells her coffee, pulls her clothes from the closet and drops them on the bed as she heads back to the kitchen. Coffee. That will help. Things will be better once she gets some caffeine.

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><p>She rubs a finger on the rim of her coffee mug, sitting at her dining room table and staring down the huge thing.<p>

Day One is the top story left window, non-descript but potentially so deadly.

He said he made everything. Most everything.

He said there was nothing to worry about. She trusts him. She does. It's just-

Kate's nervous with it being in her apartment, all his. . .feelings. . .sitting there, on her table, hiding behind 25 little doors.

Because this is a step. A first step. And she knows that even if he doesn't see it. He's still blinded by his lo-

His. . .situation. Feelings.

Oh crap, Kate, just admit it already. His love.

He loves her.

And that makes things. . .that makes this Advent calendar a bigger deal than he thinks it is.

He can't see the forest for the trees. Or maybe it's the other way around. He's blind to the trees because of the forest. This isn't just a partner, a friend, giving her a cool Christmas decoration.

She knows that, but he must not.

Still. There's nothing to be done about it. Either she rejects his gift, and also rejects him as well (which she doesn't want to do, won't ever do, no matter how very difficult he makes this ignorance and willful blindness be for her) or she sits here at her dining room table with her coffee to bolster her courage, and she takes that step.

She takes that step.

But not quite yet. Kate keeps her fingers wrapped around her mug, stares at that numbered window.

Day One. First step.

Twenty-five days of a slow descent into something she isn't ready for, can't possibly do correctly or right or with any kind of grace. It's going to be messy and ignoble and undignified. It's going to hurt her. It's going to hurt him.

And, God please, she doesn't want to hurt him anymore.

Her hand reaches out for the window, her fingernail sliding into the half-moon carved out in the casement. The grey sky, the white buildings, the flat and welcoming stars.

She doesn't want to hurt him anymore.

Kate opens the window.

Behind the casement, a flash drive - grey to match the painted sky - waits for her attention. Kate touches it with a finger, cool to the touch. He's written on it in black sharpie; Kate pulls it out of the little space and rotates it until she can read his instructions.

His handwriting is terrible.

_Upload this to your itunes; play one song each day, in order._

She taps the drive against her coffee mug, then stands up and goes through the kitchen, bypasses the living room, turns left into her office. The shutters taped over with her mother's murder board are closed up but faintly luminous in the early morning light. She turns her back on the window and sits down at her desk, opening her laptop.

It's cold in the office. Two outside walls make the temperature difference almost extreme. She brings a knee up in the chair and rests her chin on it, pushing the USB drive into the slot.

As she waits for it to mount on the desktop, she takes another long sip of her coffee, letting it scald her insides, wake her up, distract her from what she's doing.

Taking a step.

She brushes her hair back from her face, decides she will pull it up today. Lately, she's noticed that she pulls her hair back into a knot at her neck whenever she needs an extra jolt of control, a sense of orderliness, a way to maintain her detective facade. She'll wear her hair down or let it curl and braid it only when she's feeling pretty good about her progress at therapy or about where they are in this. She finds herself mostly swinging wildly between the two, can't figure out a way to get back the balance she used to have.

The drive loads; she opens it and finds 26 mp3s inside. A playlist. (But there are only 25 days until Christmas, 25 windows to open. Why 26 songs?) She opens itunes and drags them into her music library. Everything comes over labeled and ready to go. She makes a playlist which she impetuously titles 'Castle's Xmas' and then pulls her phone out of her pocket and syncs it to her itunes.

One song a day. She can do this. This isn't too bad actually. If he's filled the little windows with flash drives and playlists and silly notes, then this could be easy. Light. No trouble. It could just be a good friend showing her how to have fun.

Sure. She believes that. Riiiight.

When her phone has synced and she's ejected it from itunes, Kate immediately pulls it to her and starts the first song.

Happy bells, a little too eager (so like Castle) and then it gets going and it's okay. It really is. It's a fun song, not some cliched White Christmas stuff. There's really nothing to worry-

_But when you're in love all the lines get blurred._

Her breath catches. Did it just-? It did. The song-

She drops the phone to her desk and rubs her forehead.

_And I hope this - I hope this gets to you._

Yeah, Castle. It does.

It gets to me.


	3. December 2: In Your Heart

**December 2 - In Your Heart You Have All the Pieces**

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><p>She has it on her desk when he walks into the precinct, and his heart lifts to see it. The tiny Christmas tree glows like a beacon to Castle, as if it symbolizes all the things that can possibly go right this holiday season. For him, but most importantly, for Kate.<p>

It's mostly about giving Kate some Christmas cheer, some happy holidays. But it's also about chipping away at the mortar in that brick wall. He's convinced that it can be brought down without vengeance; love conquers all. Right?

Castle wants to believe.

He sits down in his chair - she's curiously absent from her desk - and reaches his finger out to the little bitty tree. It's a miniature of the Charlie Brown tree, pitiful green needles and the little blanket wrapped around the base. It's supposed to be a Christmas ornament, but he took the hook and string off of it so that it stands on its own.

It was behind window number two this morning.

And she brought it in to decorate her desk.

He realizes after a moment that he's still holding her coffee in his hand, so he places it on her desk by her keyboard and takes a sip of his own. He's got bearclaws and pumpkin bread and four gingerbread men because he couldn't help it. Yesterday she didn't really say anything about the playlist he created or the first song she was supposed to have listened to, but seeing this little tree on her desk somehow. . .makes all the difference.

She's playing along. She's giving it a shot. There's still a chance.

Ryan shuffles past him, so Castle turns in his chair. "Hey. I got us all breakfast. Want some?"

He holds out the bag, and Ryan snags it, digs down to inspect the goods. "Oh dude, really? Gingerbread men? I haven't had one in ages. Is this okay for breakfast?"

Castle grins. "Maybe you should call Jenny and ask her."

Behind him, Esposito snorts into his file and steps up. "Just eat the damn cookie. One can't hurt you. Give." He reaches out for the bag, and Ryan relinquishes it, a gingerbread man in his hand.

"Aw, man, Castle. You got 'em dressed like us. That's just sick."

Beckett saunters in from the direction of the stairs, a couple of uniforms tagging behind her. "We got a body, boys."

She pauses as she takes them in, her hands out to gather up her phone from her desk.

"Want breakfast?" Esposito says, taking a crunching bite out of the gingerbread man dressed in a tight shirt and army fatigues. Dog tags around his neck, short bristly hair on his head. All in icing of course.

"Is that. . .?" She trails off and gives Castle a glance.

"Gingerbread men. It seemed appropriate."

Beckett takes the bag from Espo's hand and pulls it close. Castle holds his breath as she looks down into its depths. She raises an eyebrow and gives him a long look. She pulls out a bearclaw, sticking with tried and true today apparently.

He sighs. The gingerbread man - lady - woman - is just sooo Beckett. High heeled boots, gun strapped to her thigh, slutty shirt. Okay, so maybe he had visions of Nikki Heat dancing through his head when he had the bakery decorate that one, but it's still pretty great. Epic really.

"I'll save it for lunch, Castle. When I can savor it. We got a body. You coming?"

She takes the bearclaw, her coffee, and her phone with her, heading for the elevator. Savor it? Did she just. . .was she flirting with him?

Shaking his head, Castle folds the bag and puts it in her bottom drawer to keep the other guys out of it, then hops up and follows her.

In the elevator with the boys and two of the uniformed officers, Beckett has to shift closer to Castle so there's room for everyone. He waits but she doesn't seem uncomfortable, but neither does she acknowledge the way her back is almost to his chest. He keeps a tight reign on his breathing, but he still smells her - musk and cherries, or a kind of tangy sweetness that makes him yearn to lean down and lick that spot behind her ear, taste her.

He doesn't of course. Entirely bad idea. But-

The elevator opens and the uniforms step off, then the boys, until it's just Beckett and Castle at the back. She stands close for an instant longer than necessary and then moves away, twisting a little as she does, and her hand brushes the back of his. Like she meant to do it.

Castle is rooted to the spot, blinking after her.

Beckett turns back around and lifts an eyebrow. "You getting off here, Castle? Or just waiting around for a better offer?"

It's all there. Everything. He can see it in her face.

He opens his mouth, but words have deserted him. He steps forward after her, catches the boys glancing at each other in interest, and follows Beckett to the car. He brings his coffee to his mouth and gulps it down, burning his tongue, his throat, choking on it. As he splutters, he realizes what he should have said.

No. No, he's getting off here.

He catches up to Beckett right as she gets to the car. "Beckett."

She doesn't turn around, opens her door. "Yeah."

"Better offer? Not possible. All I want is right here."

She doesn't falter, just gets in the car as if his words are nothing new, just another leering come-on. He stands there for a moment, then gets in as well.

It's not perfect; it's not what he wants to say. But he's promised not to push it too far, not to make it difficult for her. He hopes she's listening to the songs. Because everything he wants to say and can't say out loud - it's all there.

If only she'll listen.

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><p><strong>Castle's playlist can be found on youtube under my channel: chezchuckles. It's called RC playlist for KB. The only song missing is #20, M83's 'Splendor' which I hope to upload myself and add by the time we get there.<strong>


	4. December 3: I Never Took My True Heart

**December 3 - I Never Took My True Heart; I Never Wrote it Down**

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><p>Beckett has Esposito text him to say they're all coming over. Gates had them catching up on paperwork on a Saturday and then the on-call team got a double homicide, which meant that Beckett and the boys gave some back-up, and now it's late and they just want to have a few beers and badmouth a Captain who ruins the weekend and murderers who never rest. She let the boys talk her into it; she's not sure what she'll do, this late in the evening when she's tired.<p>

Tired and more honest than she maybe should be.

Castle meets them at his bar; he's wearing that beautiful wool coat that makes him look taller than he is, his shoulders broad. His hands twitch when he sees her, but he greets Espo with a fist bump and pats Kevin on the back with a comment. His hair is in his eyes and he's got that wide and crinkly smile as he looks at her. He gestures for them to go on in.

Her hand on his forearm stops him. The boys shuffle past into the Old Haunt and she waits out on the bottom step with him. He looks at her with questions in his eyes. The darkness is out there somewhere, but it's cozy in the cone of the security lamps hanging over the bar's sign, the golden lamplight filtering through the windows.

She has too many questions and not enough answers. She can't even ask her questions because of. . .everything. Does Castle even know what he's doing to her? All these little gifts and the new song every day and can he even know?

"Hey, Kate, it's just the holidays, okay?" He flips his arm under her touch and takes her hand; she forgot she still had her fingers on his forearm, forgot not to touch him. She untangles their hands and puts both of hers in her coat pockets.

She nods. "Just the holidays."

"And just. . .let it mean whatever you want it to mean."

Oh, that's too close. She looks away, through the glass and wood and into the bar's warm interior. Kate shivers and hunches her shoulders so that her scarf covers her jaw. It's the first snap of cold; snow has fallen at her dad's place. He sent her a photo to her work email this morning.

"I liked the song," she says finally, turning back to look at him. "They have an album or-?"

He laughs. "Arcade Fire? Yeah, they've got a few." Castle leans against the exterior of the bar, his hands going into his pockets now as well. He looks good in relief like this, the warm light on one side of his face, the darkness of the night creating those deep shadows. Her fingers curl in her pocket.

"You think I'd like them?"

He regards her for a long moment, and if she squints and doesn't look at him too closely, then she can pretend he's just mentally surveying her question, and not mentally surveying her. Kate.

"I think you'd love them. If you gave them a chance."

She lifts startled eyes to his. So he *does* know what he's doing; he has to. It's a plan. Three days ago when she opened that first window and accepted it, all of this, she thought maybe he didn't know what he was asking of her.

He knows. She's got to make a response to that. "I can. . .listen to them. Try them out."

Kate holds his gaze for a moment, and she knows he understands. He gets it. Castle drops his eyes first, straightens up, his face clouded by things she doesn't understand.

"Any suggestions?" she says quickly, as if she feels the need to prove herself, prove she can do this.

Can she do this?

Maybe not. But he's put them on this path, he's pushed it, and she sat down in the road stubbornly and refused to move. And then he came along and prodded her, and now look. She's taken the first step of this journey. She won't turn around now. She can't go back.

"'Crown of Love,'" he says immediately, and his eyes find hers. Challenge accepted, but who threw down the gauntlet first, she has no idea.

"Okay." She feels the need to pull out her phone and make a note, but they're not really talking about music, are they?

Are they?

Just in case, she slides her phone out of her pocket and adds a note, her heart pounding because she's not sure anymore what signals she's sending out or what he means, _what does he mean?_, and she wants only for things to be clear between them. Not muddied.

"What else?" she says, but calls up her web browser and looks up Arcade Fire, scrolling through their albums and song titles. She's not sure she can keep watching his face as he uses her heart for target practice, throwing darts for a bull's-eye.

"My Body Is a Cage," he says, and the gentleness in his voice makes her eyes fly to his. He's closer than he was just a minute ago, and her fingers fumble on her phone; he reaches out and catches it before it can drop.

Crap. She's. . .clumsy in front of Castle. That's not good.

She takes her phone back, her eyes tracking the song titles on her search result desperately, as if she needs an answer, something to keep the conversation moving (she can't let it be silent, and fraught with possibility, and tempting lips) and so she blurts out the first title that catches her eye.

"How about 'Ready to Start'?"

He makes a noise in this throat, and she can feel the hard arrhythmia of her heart in her chest, berating her. Ready to start?

She's not ready.

"Hopefully," he says, and has to clear his throat. His hand has come up to her elbow; she can feel the press of his thumb even through her coat. "Hopefully by the time you've listened to a few songs, maybe a whole album, 'Ready to Start' will be perfect. For you."

Kate closes her eyes.

What has she done?


	5. December 4: Let Your Heart Be Clear

**December 4 - Let Your Heart Be Clear**

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><p>He gets a text from her this morning in which she says that the fourth song on his playlist is one of her father's favorite songs, and does he know that it isn't a Christmas song really, but a protest song? Oh, and also, a body dropped just outside the Met, if he's ready to start.<p>

Ready to start?

Looks like whatever happened at the Old Haunt last night hasn't completely ruined things. And did she use that phrase on purpose - ready to start - as a way of hinting that she wasn't running away from that circumlocutious conversation?

Castle sighs and drops his phone back on his bedside table, rubs his eyes.

He needs to stop analyzing everything to death. He needs to get her coffee and - what time is it? five? - get her coffee and maybe a small pastry, even though she claims she doesn't like starting every day with what she calls 'cake' for breakfast.

Who doesn't like cake for breakfast?

He needs to do what he's always done. And hope the wrinkles get ironed out with the routine of the day.

Castle scratches his stomach and tries to remember what gift he left in the window for this day. He's got a list somewhere. She's been rather close-mouthed about the little things he's left for her. The tree she left on her desk, but yesterday not a word.

Time to get out of bed, stop thinking. Body outside the Met. Beckett's coffee.

He showers quickly, pulls on jeans and a grey tshirt, then slides his arms through a button-up blue oxford. The cold snap still has its grip on the city, so he wears his wool socks with his boots and then gets the striped scarf out of the back of the hall closet. His wool coat is still thrown over the chair in his study where he crashed after staying too late at the bar.

Alexis is just leaving for school; she makes a comment about how much his coat smells as she kisses his cheek. Castle sniffs at it and sighs. Alcohol and winter cold, the faint and lingering impression of cigarette smoke, where the wood of the bar has soaked in years of atmosphere and releases its fragrance as the night wears on.

He shucks off his coat and leaves it out to remind him to get it dry cleaned, then rifles through his closet for another one. Trench coat won't be warm enough. Does he not have another wool coat somewhere? Ug.

He finds a grey and black plaid train coat, sighs and pulls it on. It goes with his black boots well enough, and he *is* wearing jeans (nice, expensive jeans that probably cost more than this plaid jacket, but still). It fits snug across the shoulders and chest, but he'll have the scarf and he can survive for a day.

Now he's ready to-

start.

Yeah. He is.

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><p>In Central Park, the brown leaves still clog sewer drains and the black branches are wet with last night's hard rain. The air smells of woodsmoke and churned mud, but he steps carefully around the worst of it and follows Beckett to the crime scene.<p>

When she takes her hands out of her pockets to sign the log-in sheet, he sees the bright red, knitted yarn wrapping her palms, her wrists, leaving her fingers bare.

Oh, right. He grins and has to turn his head so she won't see him. He put the left glove into yesterday's window, and the right glove into today's. Probably why she didn't say anything - she must've been rolling her eyes at him when she could finally use both today.

Fingerless gloves in stripes of red and turquoise and light grey. He picked those colors as the theme for his Operation Christmas Cheer, and his mission seems to be successful (so far). Beckett has a sly, carefully controlled smile on her lips, and she doesn't look at him, but he knows that she's enjoying herself.

Ryan grabs her wrist and holds up her gloved hand, making one of his innocent, naive remarks. Esposito, of course, gets snarky. But Beckett only turns her head and looks back to him.

In acknowledgement.

His breath rushes out.

Only the boys don't seem to get it, don't make the connection. Instead they hoot with laughter and start making fun of his plaid jacket, comments about hunters lost in the woods, about it being a tight fit (damn, he knew it was too snug), and does he need ear muffs to go with it?

When Beckett leads the way through the wooded area behind the Met and stops, Castle nearly bumps into her, so busy is he swatting away Esposito's gnat-like comments that he almost doesn't catch himself in time. Why has she stopped?

Beckett puts her hand up to halt him too, the back of her fingers brushing his chest. He moves his eyes from the boys, to her hand, his silly heart thumping, and then past the immediate awareness of her body to the wooded area beyond.

Pieces.

Of bodies. Littering the undergrowth.

His mouth goes dry.

Beckett removes her gloves, pushes them into her pocket.

"Let's find Dr. Perlmutter," she grits out.

* * *

><p>They sit outside the autopsy suite in the hallway, waiting on Perlmutter. The man has rules.<p>

Castle brushes his fingers over his knees and glances at Beckett; she has her phone out, reading a text from Ryan.

"They're getting nowhere," she mutters.

"Where's Lanie?"

"Some people actually do get the weekend off," Beckett says, lifting her gaze to him with an apology.

"I thought we weren't on call this weekend," he whines, playing along. She doesn't seem to even be phased by the 'we.'

"We weren't. Other team got a call yesterday. Gates has thing thing about the order-"

She sighs, tilts her head back against the wall, not finishing that sentence. He knows that Gates sorta kinda is growing on her a bit (or was), but he still hasn't been able to find her good side. Her unbending resistance to him is unnatural. Everyone loves him.

"Gates has a lot of things," he adds.

She huffs a laugh, rubs a hand at her side. "I'm worn out."

Surprised, Castle glances over at her. Beckett doesn't give out admissions like that. "My fault. Kept you out too long."

Something of a smile ghosts her lips; she turns toward him, strands of her hair coming out of the bun and getting in her eyes, brushing her cheek. She lifts her head from the wall, pushes her hair away form her face. "My choice. I'm glad I stayed. It was. . .fun, Castle."

"You get any sleep at all?"

"Three hours?" She winces, like it sounds terrible, and well, it does. Still, she looks pretty good for only three hours.

"But we all left at midnight. What were you doing for two hours?"

She shrugs, but something on her face tells him she just doesn't want to say.

"Come on, Beckett. Spill. You stayed up until two?"

She crosses her arms over her chest, glances to the doors of the autopsy suite, but no Perlmutter comes to save her from this. Castle waits; he has hope. Hope that things are slowly changing, and if they are changing, then-

"I was thinking," she says finally, her eyes flicking over to meet his, dropping away.

For two hours? What in the world could she possibly have-?

Oh.

Oh, _this_. Them. She was thinking about them.

Castle stares at her, tries not to read anything into the slump of her shoulders (that's just fatigue, right? just a consequence of only having three hours sleep, and not an indication of her. . .thinking). She pushes her tongue to her lip, opens her mouth as if to speak, shuts it again. Her fingers fiddle with her phone.

"You. . .come to any conclusions?" He folds his hands in his lap, tries to be nonchalant. He knows he's failing miserably.

She takes in a breath. "Not. . .no. But. . .maybe I should have said-" She swallows and clears her throat. "I should say. . .I was daydreaming." A long sigh out. "Just. . .stupid."

Daydreaming.

Of them. This. Them. Has to be. Look at her - nervous and - daydreaming. Daydreaming. Jeez, he-

The door of the autopsy suite bangs open, and a gowned and gloved Perlmutter gestures for them to come inside. The ME glares at Castle as the partners rise; Perlmutter wags a finger at him. "I'd wipe that smirk off your face. This case just got a whole lot more complicated."

Beckett's already a half-step ahead of him, but she turns her head back, catches him out.

He can't help it. She just admitted to daydreaming about him. Them. This.

Castle leans in close to her ear, catches her elbow before she can get away from him. "Anytime you need help with those daydreams, you just let me know. I could go all night, Beckett."


	6. December 5: Carol of the Bartenders

**Advent**

* * *

><p>December 5 - Carol of the Bartenders<p>

* * *

><p>He grunts when his phone rings, drags his arm out from under the covers and fumbles around on the bedside stand, searching for the source of the alarm. No. Ringing. It's his phone. It's six in the morning? It's Beckett at six in the morning. On a Monday. Oh. Must be a body. Oh jeez, hopefully not a body, not another dismembered corpse strewn through Central Park-<p>

"Yeah?"

"You are a goofball," she states flatly.

"Huh?"

Silence.

He glances at the display; she's hung up on him.

He's a goof-?

Oh.

He grins. Day 5, track 5 on the playlist. She must have listened to the next song, a Bob Rivers Twisted Radio parody of Carol of the Bells. Yeah, that's a good one. A bunch of bartenders in chorus, asking revelers not to drink and drive, singing 'Don't be a dick' and 'Don't drive a stick,' stuff like that.

Heh. Yeah.

Castle flops over on his back, closes his eyes again, phone against his chest, a smile stretching across his face. He wonders if she's opened the next window; he placed one of those tiny bottles of alcohol that you get on the plane or in a hotel room's minibar. He can still see it propped up inside the little hollow for the fifth day; when he set up the Advent calendar on her dining room table, he had to go back through and open every little window and make sure nothing had gotten too jostled.

His phone buzzes and he answers immediately. "Beckett?"

"You are seriously deranged, Rick Castle."

"Yeah. But you're smiling aren't you?"

Silence on her end again and he checks his phone, but no. She's still on the line. He wonders if she unfurled the note wrapped around the minibar bottle like a label.

"Rum."

He grins wider. "Yeah. You read the note?"

"For emergency nog? You think I'm going to get much use out of a tiny little bottle of rum, Castle?"

"I meant like, an emergency *cup*, Beckett. One cup. Not an entire punch bowl of the stuff."

"Oh, so you're not inviting me to your Christmas party then?"

He laughs, tired as he is, and blinks into the sleepy darkness of his bedroom. "Believe me, you're invited. And my egg nog? It'll be spiked. Oh yeah. Because I've got mistletoe up every two feet, Kate."

She takes in a startled laugh and he feels warmth in it. If it's possible to feel warmth over the phone with miles between them. Miles and whole income brackets and tragedies between them. Talk about walls.

"When is your Christmas party this year?"

"Soon. Well. Not soon enough. I was thinking the 16th this year."

"That a Friday?"

"Yeah," he confirms, holding his breath even though it sounded like she wants to come. He just can't be sure.

"Despite your threat of mistletoe, I'll be there. I'm not on call Friday."

He knows. He didn't want anything to keep her from showing up. No possible excuse. "Admit it."

"What?"

"You were expecting five golden rings, weren't you?" He grins and waits for her comeback.

"Castle?"

"Yeah."

"Shut up."

"Lame, Beckett. So very lame. That just confirms my suspicions."

He closes his eyes, the better to hear the slightest change on her side of things. There's a feathery laugh and he swears he can hear her pressing her lips together in that new version of the eye-roll where she wants to smile at him but won't dare let herself.

He loves that new eye-roll that isn't an eye-roll. Loves the press of her lips into a suppressed smile.

"Castle."

"Huh?"

"Thank you for the song. I needed that this morning."

He hears the silence and realizes she's hung up on him again. But that's okay. She's coming to his Christmas party. With all that mistletoe.

* * *

><p>He has just dozed off - or it feels like it - when his phone dances along the bedside table. He reaches for it blindly, eyes still closed.<p>

"Kate. Hi," he murmurs. Who else could it be?

"Wake up. This one's about a body."

"Your body?"

"Castle," she admonishes, but he thinks there's a smile in there somewhere.

"My body?" he gasps.

"Castle." Less smile. More growl.

* * *

><p>What follows is the strangest, most messed up (kinkiest) case he's ever helped his partner to solve.<p>

By the end of it, they need a punch bowl's worth of emergency egg nog. Maybe a punch bowl each.


	7. December 6: Can You Say What You Want

**SPOILERS FOR CUFFED**

* * *

><p><strong>December 6 - Can You Say What You Want<strong>

* * *

><p>By the time Castle gets to the precinct, Beckett is deep in a mood. It's not a foul mood, but it's close. She's just. . .<p>

Yesterday, she was lured in by a crazy woman in a cage, tranquilized, handcuffed to Rick Castle for hours, tortured with worst-case psychopath scenarios, and then nearly eaten by a tiger.

A tiger.

Oh, right. And when it was all over, then she kinda, maybe, sorta teased him (maybe? totally). Only it wasn't teasing. Only-

She's an idiot.

But she's not tiger kibble.

That's one thing at least.

However, yesterday isn't the reason she's in a mood. The FBI have taken over her case, the mutilated bodies in Central Park, even though Perlmutter and Lanie both have confirmed that feral dogs got into a shallow grave and did the horrific damage. Of course, a shallow grave filled with three and counting bodies doesn't bode well either.

No luck on DNA hits, no IDs on the victims, no clue yet what they're dealing with and already the feds have taken over. It's only been two days. She's not even been given a chance to prove herself. She spent all of yesterday handcuffed to her partner, so they could at least give her a break here.

Castle looks at her in askance, people rushing and pulling out files, lots of men in suits, Beckett standing alone and inviolate against it all.

Her chest aches but that's nothing new. She did try to shove against a freezer filled with chains, and then, oh yeah, she battered down a wall.

Not the wall she should've been beating against.

"You need to be here for this?" he asks, sweeping the room with a look.

She shakes her head, but she can't unstick herself from her position at her desk, her frustration on the brink of fury.

"Come with me," he says and holds out his hand as if he's going to take hers.

Hasn't he had enough of them linked by the hands?

Kate gives him a dark look but he doesn't withdraw his hand or his offer. Instead, he wraps his fingers around her elbow to curl at her bicep, and he tugs her. She offers a moment's staunch resistance, resolute and firmly in place, before she allows him to pull her towards the elevator.

Already, the hot, mean sting of helplessness is melting away, leaving something clear and calm behind it. Stepping onto the lift after him, she can't help leaning back against the wall and tilting her head towards him.

"You see what I did there?"

He twists his head to hers, eyebrow raised.

"Who went first, Castle?"

He cracks a grin and tries to quickly smother it, then can't seem to help grinning her again. "All right, so you *can* change."

Kate crosses her arms over her chest. "That was risky," she remarks. "Grabbing me."

"Was it?" he volleys back, raising an eyebrow.

Was it? No. Not for him. He can touch her. He can - move her. They just spent a whole day chained together - cuffed - and they work well together.

She sighs and closes her eyes. "I don't want to lose this case."

"Looks like you've already lost it."

"All day yesterday was a wash. They aren't even giving me a chance-"

"Maybe they have information we don't."

"Maybe they're being assholes."

"You think so? Really, Kate?"

She jerks her head up and looks at him, at the weariness in his voice and in his eyes, as if he's so very tired of hearing the same routine from her. As if he knows that behind the surface frustration is a deeper grief, a blacker darkness, that she will never openly admit to.

He does. He knows.

She might have also hurt him, a little, by saying yesterday was a wash. As if that experience didn't have any effect. But it did. She still remembers what it's like to drift upwards into consciousness and feel the warmth of his chest under her hand, open her eyes and see his profile.

"I opened the window this morning. On the calendar." She doesn't need to explain, but she does anyway.

"Yeah."

"I don't know what it means," she says honestly, and reaches into her pocket for the key. She pulls it out, a plain silver key with no markings or emblems, but which she vaguely thinks might look familiar.

His lips curl. "Just hold on to it. I'll show you."

"You better not have cuffs."

He laughs.

* * *

><p>"This is a little farther than I wanted to go."<p>

He looks at her, shrugs her off.

The cab pulls up in front of his apartment and her rib cage tightens. "Castle."

"It's not a key to my apartment," he murmurs. "But I'm willing to hand one over if you plan on surprising-"

"Castle. Focus."

"I am. Oh, I-"

She is so very tempted to twist an ear, but she only gets out of the cab and waits for him to pay. Inside the lobby, he heads to the elevator and presses the call button, then returns to her side and brushes his hand down the back of her arm.

"This is exactly what you need. And no. Not a spare key to your handcuffs."

She lifts an eyebrow, but the touch of his palm, even through her leather jacket, is somehow reassuring. She doesn't want it to be, but she's been through with denial for awhile now.

Inside the elevator, he punches the button for the garage and she gets that sharp spike of foreknowledge, the awareness of how the next few hours will go.

Her hands start to tingle as they walk through the parking garage.

When they stop in front of his Ferrari, everything stills.

"I figured there's no way in hell you'd let me buy you your very own. And if I did that, then there'd be even less reason for me to watch you drive."

She shifts her gaze to him for a moment, darts her eyes back to the car. The car. Oh, that car.

Kate pulls the key out of her pocket. Castle pulls his out as well and steps closer; the lights blink as it unlocks remotely.

"I gave you the valet key. It won't unlock the doors, but it will let you drive. Still. Should you ever want to go without me, I can-"

"Why would I want to do that?" she says, throwing him a dark and devious look, some of her irritation leaving her, some of last night's thrill back in her blood.

He grins back at her, an answering in his gaze. "Want to take it out-?"

"Hell, yeah," she murmurs and opens the driver's door, slides behind the wheel before he can say a word.

She is *not* tiger food. She is in control.

Kate wraps a hand over the gear shift, feels the inherent power under her fingers, waits until Castle gets in as well before inserting the key and letting the ignition roar to life. She can feel the throaty, gorgeous work of the engine all through her body, low and delicious, and she hears Castle let out a little breathless growl beside her.

Beckett eases her gaze over to meet his, thrilled with the sex fantasies flashing to life in his eyes, thrilled and possessed and electrified.

This is going to be a good, good day.


	8. December 7: It's Been Falling All Day

**December 7 - It's Been Falling All Day Long**

* * *

><p>White flurries drift past his view; Castle blinks a few times to focus his bleary eyes, shuts his laptop, and sits up, gazing out the windows.<p>

He can't remember it snowing this early before. It's late Wednesday night; another homeless man dropped from exposure, but Beckett's running the investigation like it might be a homicide. Just in case. She kicked him out hours ago because, after all, it's probably not a homicide; he can't help but call her.

When she answers, she's chuckling into the phone. "The snow?" she says softly.

"Yeah. So you're still up." Her slow laughter curls through him like heat.

"Hmm, I'm actually almost to your place."

"You are?" he says, stunned. He glances to the window, gets up and heads over as if he can spot her. He scans the streets below. "Where are you?"

"In a cab. Too cold for the bike. You decent, Castle?"

"Uh. Good question. I'll get that way."

"Don't on my account," she laughs softly.

What is this? This is not Kate Beckett. He checks his phone to be sure, but it's her face on the caller ID. He curls his toes against the wood floor and presses his forehead to the cold glass, watching snowflakes melt against the concrete edifice of his building.

"It won't stick," he says mournfully.

"I hope not. Trudging through snowdrifts in pursuit of a suspect is not my idea of fun."

"Scrooge."

"Not tonight I'm not," she says, and again it's that soft and warm voice, like melting chocolate, and he has to sit down in the windowseat as his knees give way.

"How soon until you get here?"

"Look down."

He turns his head and peers through the darkness below, searching for a yellow cab. "I can't see-"

"Too bad."

Suddenly, naughty visions rise up before his eyes, but surely not. This is Beckett. Surely not.

"I'll unlock the door," he says instead, hoping his breathlessness doesn't bleed through.

"You do that. Now hang up, Castle. I'm nearly there."

Is it wrong that he can hear her saying that last line very clearly in his fantasies? A little more gasping, a little more wild, but not much more amazing.

Castle gets up and drops his phone to the couch as he moves toward the front door. He flips the locks and can't help opening the door just to check down the hall. He can see the elevator moving.

Oh. Today's gift. Is that the reason?

Or there was yesterday's key to the Ferrari. It's possible she wants to drive it again; he could go for that. He's still in sweat pants and a tshirt though, bare feet, hair crazy from sleeplessness and long hours writing. Castle leaves the door open and heads back to the windows overlooking the city.

The flakes have started thickening, clumping together now. A dusting of snow coats the tops of awnings and fire hydrants, the edges of tree branches and the lips of the roofs. Castle reaches out and touches the glass, lets the sharp cold travel through his bones, relieve the too-good heat of her voice on the phone.

"Best view in the city," she says softly.

He turns his head and she's in his loft, shutting the door behind her. But her eyes aren't on the windows, her eyes are on him.

All this because of seven days' worth of little gifts? Gloves and music and a drive. "Hey."

She comes forward, shrugging out of her leather jacket, pulling the fingerless gloves off her hands with a look in his direction. Oh yeah, Kate. He notices.

He just can't watch any longer. Castle turns his head back to the soft flurries drifting quietly outside his apartment, lets the chill seep in through the glass and keep him grounded. Kate steps up to his side and touches a finger to the glass as if tracking the long fall of a snowflake.

"I knew you'd be awake to see this," she says.

He makes a fatal mistake: he looks over at her. The whiteness of the snow reflects against her skin, hard points of light in her eyes. Her dark hair is pulled back at the nape of her neck, messy, and he aches to unravel it down her back, slide his fingers against her skull. It hits him so strongly that he has to press both palms flat against the glass, let the cold clutch at him.

He can't keep his mouth shut though. "You look. . .happy." He wants to say more, other things, better things. He wants to tell her how beautiful she is, how her being here at eleven on December 7th when he knows - he knows - that all he's put in today's little box was a silver hershey kiss, how her being here means so much to him.

She slides her gaze from the snow and back towards him, spreads her fingers along the glass until their hands meet. "I had your kiss," she says.

And she must know how it sounds, but she doesn't take it back, doesn't hesitate, only brushes her fingers against the back of his hand, still against the window.

"Yeah?" he answers finally. "I have the rest of the bag here. If you want."

She grins, that quick, pleased, surprised grin. "Yeah?"

"Course. I hid them from mother and Alexis."

"Mean of you. Hiding chocolate from women."

"I thought you might want the rest."

She turns and puts her back against the glass, watching him, giving a little noise of appreciation in her throat.

He makes an effort to breathe. "Kate Beckett likes chocolate. Enough to come looking for it. Noted."

"I like kisses," she says instead, then lifts a hand to her cheek as if it burns. But he can't see a flush in her cheeks, doesn't see any tell. Only the careful arch of her fingers against the side of her face and the bird wings of her eyebrows soaring over the dark earth of her eyes.

"Let me get it for you then," he finally says. For a moment, he can't move, can't pull away from the cold glass and the drift of snow just past her head, white on dark, the beautiful way she looks at him.

A stolen moment. A drift out of time. A gift.

And then he turns and heads for his kitchen and the bag of hershey kisses he hid behind the casserole dishes in the cabinet. When he finds them and holds them up, he sees Kate is still at the windowseat, sitting back on her feet, but her eyes are on him.

He heads back, tries not to look like he wants to run to her, and drops the bag in her lap. She dives in, unwraps the silver foil from the chocolate bell, and puts it on her tongue. He watches, like he's been given an exclusive pass to the best show on earth. He couldn't look away if he tried.

She closes her eyes when she closes her mouth; he leans a shoulder against the window to soak up the cold air, can't help lifitng his hand as if he might touch her.

But he doesn't. He curls his fingers instead and lays his fist against the window.

Kate's eyes slowly open; he can see her tongue working against the chocolate just by the way her throat moves. Then she puts her hand to her mouth and hides a smile he can still see.

"Good?" he murmurs.

"Yeah," she sighs. Something rebellious comes over her face and she pulls out another one, unwraps it - green foil this time - and holds it up for him. "You try."

He lifts his hand but she shakes her head, and before he can think about it, he opens his mouth and lets her pop the chocolate over his lips. He manages to get a brief taste of her thumb as he closes his mouth.

Her eyes hold his. "Good?"

"Yeah." He's talking with his mouth full, but the melting chocolate and the memory of the soft pad of her thumb fill up more than his mouth.

He swallows before it can melt completely, rich and milky, and then he leans forward and gives her a kiss back. Right along her cheek, innocent enough, with the snow falling down outside the glass.

Before he can pull back, Kate's fingers brush along the side of his neck and curl into a fist, her thumb at his adam's apple.

Warmth permeates him, pushes out the cold; he breathes softly against the skin of her cheek and then he sits back.

Her hand, left poised in the empty air, curls against her chest; her eyes open.


	9. December 8: Wishing Song

**December 8 - Wishing Song**

* * *

><p>She runs her fingers over his blu ray collection just to have something to do other than stare at him, or the snow, which might hypnotize her with its quiet fall, tempt her to fall right down with it. Into him.<p>

"Pick something," he says.

She notices that he's grouped them by actor or director. Elf, 500 Days of Summer, Yes Man, Failure to Launch (really, Castle?), Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. . .ah-ha. She gets it now.

"Oh my word. You're in love with Zooey Deschanel."

"What? No."

She gives him a look and he winces.

Kate laughs. "She's on your list, isn't she? What number? Looks like she's right near the top. I mean, Failure to Launch?"

"That's Alexis's movie."

"No, it's not."

He opens his mouth, shuts it. He wrinkles his forehead. "She was on the list. But I don't. . .keep a list really."

Kate raises her eyebrow. "Right."

"Really. When you start actually coming into contact with some of these people, it just. . .the list kind of falls apart."

She considers that for a moment, thinks about their time in LA, about Natalie Rhodes in the 12th, about Ryan's misadventures with Jenny. Remembers the actress who slept with Castle so she could get the part of Nikki Heat. Okay, so yeah. He might be right.

"You have a list?" he asks suddenly.

She pulls Elf and gets on her knees in front of the player, pops in the disc while Castle adjusts the television.

"Actually, no. Not. . .no." Not anymore. Not since meeting him, having him hang around all the time.

He *is* a celebrity, even if it's within a narrow world, with a narrow focus. He has fans. She's been one of them. She *is* one of them, in a strangely compartmentalized way.

Or not so compartmentalized. Depends on the day.

Still, it's not like she had a list with him on it. Not exactly. Not written down.

(She wonders if - when - she wonders when they do this, will she tell him? _You were - are - on my list. From the beginning. And I only said no that first case because I wanted to mean more to you than a conquest_.)

Kate stares at the blu-ray player, feeling a little breathless.

(She wonders when they do this, when she's in his bed or he in hers, will she say, _You were on my list but George Clooney was number one._? Just to hear him groan. To watch the flicker of not-entirely-fake jealousy as he pulls her down to his mouth and-)

"Okay, it's starting. Get up here," he says, interrupting her daydream.

Daydream. She has got to stop this.

Kate crawls up next to him, sits close enough to feel his warmth, shares the blanket he's pulled out here from his study. A Christmas movie, the light snow drifting down outside, the dark apartment, his warm shoulder against hers-

Kate falls asleep on his couch sometime during the first fifteen minutes of the movie, wakes up roughly to his laughter. It's just after midnight according to her father's watch; she tugs a hand through her hair and sits up a little.

"I woke you, didn't I?" Castle sighs and wraps his hand around her upper arm as if he wants to pull her back down.

"Did I fall asleep on you?" Kate resists his pull and leans forward on her knees, rubbing her hands over her face, then pressing the heel of one hand to the tightness of her scar.

He rubs her back for a moment, scratching at the space between her shoulder blades. "Little bit. It's okay. You didn't drool too bad."

She laughs and flashes him a look over her hunched shoulder. He slides his hand down her back to the place at her side, his thumb gentle over her ribs.

"Does it hurt?"

"Sometimes."

"How bad?"

"Bad isn't exactly the word for it. Annoying."

"Oh," he says softly. He's looking at her strangely though; she turns her head back to him, frowns.

"What's wrong, Castle?"

"Just annoying?"

She blows out a breath and shakes her head, but she doesn't roll her eyes. She's promised herself she would stop doing that when he got too close. Because it's *not* too close. It's just fine.

She's the one with the issues.

Of course, eye-rolling has turned into compressed lips struggling to smother a smile.

"Not just annoying," she admits finally. "It gets tight. Pulls."

"How about. . .the physical therapy?"

"It's over now. The day after would be bad at first, but it did help."

"And you're back 100% otherwise?"

She worries her bottom lip with her teeth and sits back against the couch. She owes him. "Almost."

He absorbs that, nods at her once. But there's a sense of shame or regret in his face that she doesn't understand.

"Castle. What's this about?"

"I should've put it first. I didn't think about it like that-"

"What? What first?"

His eyebrows knit together and then his thumb is brushing over her ribs again, bumping down her skin. "The gift for today. I should've put it first. I wish I had thought of it sooner."

Her curiosity piqued, she studies his face for clues but sees nothing other than a faint sense of guilt.

"I'm sure it's fine."

"Let's go get it," he says suddenly, sitting up.

"It's still snowing. Has been all night." And she doesn't want to leave. Not now. When it's warm and quiet in his loft, when the bag of chocolate rests on the table behind the couch, when she can fall asleep on his shoulder.

If she goes back to her apartment, she'll be there. And not here.

"The snow isn't sticking." He pops up from the couch and shuffles over to the window; she sees his shoulders twitch with the cold. "Oh. Well. It's still do-able. I can drive. Or you. You're probably better at it."

"Whatever it is, I'm sure it will keep, Castle." She tilts her head back on his couch and closes her eyes. After a moment, she's certain he's watching her. She can almost feel the roaming gaze.

"I feel badly for leaving it so long," he says finally, much closer than she expected.

Kate opens her eyes and finds him at the far end of the couch, still standing, goose bumps rising on his forearms. He's only in sweatpants and a tshirt; she at least has on a couple of layers.

"Tell me what it is and I'll tell you if you should feel bad about it," she answers finally, quirking her eyebrow at him and then lifting her head. "It's after midnight, so it's technically okay."

Castle sighs and drops back down in his seat, this time sitting a little bit closer. She's perversely proud of his move; it's about time.

(Only, he isn't the slow one here, is he? He isn't the one holding them back.)

"You remember when you told me how you figured out that the sniper was physically disabled? Because you tried to climb the ladder to the roof and couldn't?"

She nods, a fragment of winter cold slicing through the warmth of his apartment. The fingers of her left hand start to tingle. Kate battles it back, squeezing her hand into a fist over and over.

Castle glances down and sees it, drops his hand over hers. "I did some research when I wrote Hell Hath No Fury, thinking I'd use fire as a means for those cult murders-"

Kate snorts and puts her hand to her mouth, amused by the way he narrows his eyes at her.

"Anyway," he says pointedly. "I ended up not roasting the victims alive, but I did a lot of research on burn victims. I got sucked into it. But it. . .was a little too horrifying. Too real."

Her lingering amusement falters.

"I remembered a few weeks ago. Something I heard more than a few doctors and burn victims rave about. So I got you the treatment lotion they use on their scar tissue and skin grafts. It's really greasy, but it keeps it hydrated and pliable. I thought-"

"Castle." She stares at him, stunned by. . .by his thoughtfulness. "Castle, I don't - that's-"

He gives her a whipped puppy look. "But I should've just given it to you when I first got my hands on it. That sniper case was a week before Thanksgiving. I wish I-"

"Hey." She shakes her head at him, can't help lifting her hand to brush down the outside of his shoulder. "It's fine. It's. . .really good. That will help a lot, especially now that I don't have physical therapy."

He nods once but he doesn't look too convinced. "I could run over to your place and get it. It will only take me-"

"No, Castle," she says gently, shifting closer on the couch. Her hand is still at his arm, thumb in the crook of his elbow. She can feel his pulse jumping there.

Or maybe that's her own.

"I wish I'd thought," he says with a sigh, tilting his head back on the couch.

She puts a hand on his chest to steady herself. Unsure why she feels like she's swaying, like she might fall into him.

"You did think. And you came up with a really great, thoughtful gift. A week's worth of great, thoughtful gifts. Timing is everything, Castle."

She can't resist raising her hand and skimming her thumb over the hard ridge of his chin. His eyes are on hers in the semi-darkness, the movie still playing but the sound low.

She leans forward and lets herself brush her lips against his cheek, a complement to the one he gave her hours ago.

His hand raises to brush the back of his fingers at her neck, at once more familiar and caressing than a kiss.

Kate's lashes drift down; she can feel them skim his cheek. She breathes, leans her forehead into his.

"Thank you for thinking of me."


	10. December 9: It's Only A Change of Time

**December 9 - It's Only a Change of Time**

* * *

><p>She rubs the cream into her skin first thing this morning, right after her shower. She thinks about him, about his face in the darkness, as she does. Her fingers press hard, working every last bit of it into the pucker of her scars.<p>

They don't shame her; she likes to watch them heal in the mirror. Likes to see the progression, from shattered to whole. She tells herself that the physical healing matches the emotional, the psychic, the mental. She tells herself that because to believe anything else is to admit that she's not-

She won't admit it.

She's taken the first step, and nine days later, it's still. . .easy. Easy enough. She won't think about the ragged wounds, the bullet holes in her life; she will only watch them close up, day by day, moment to moment.

The cream is greasy and smells funny too, but she already feels the difference. It's easier to move this morning than it has been in a long while. She didn't get much sleep and she's wearing more concealer than usual, but her body feels strong in a way it hasn't for so long now. Kate dresses quickly, carefully adds eyeliner, mascara, straps on her father's watch-

hesitates.

Before she slips on that necklace with her mother's ring, she has something she wants to do.

Kate pads out of her room and into the living room, crossing it to get to the dining room. The row of grey apartment buildings shaped into an advent calendar still rests on her table, eight little open windows. She's still got her phone charging in the Bose stereo dock, so she scrolls through the playlist to the song for today, presses play.

As the music drifts around the room, echoing and rolling like the sea, Kate opens the ninth window in the apartment building. Inside is a snowflake, an ornament, with a note attached.

_Time to buy a tree, Kate._

It is. It's time to start doing a lot of things.

* * *

><p>Castle is startled to find her following him out of the bullpen, stepping onto the elevator with him. She's said nothing today about the song or the gift, but she's been smiling at him so much. Real smiles. Whole mouth smiles that she doesn't try to hide. She watches him. And the past few days have been. . .it's just been a different dynamic.<p>

The elevator doors close; it's seven o'clock and he's planning on getting home to the loft in time to catch Alexis, make dinner. She and his mother have just gotten back from their colleges tour; he wants to hear about everything.

Kate is giving him sidelong looks as the elevator descends.

"Uh. Going home?" he asks.

"No. And neither are you."

"I'm not?"

"We're going to get me a tree, Castle."

And she walks off the elevator, leaving him gaping.

* * *

><p>"You're not getting a live tree?" he pouts.<p>

She spent the whole walk here with her hands in her pockets, telling herself *not* to reach out and take his hand.

Kate shoots him a look as she heads into the drugstore. "Live trees are depressing. They drop needles everywhere-"

"Not if you keep them watered."

"-and there's no good way to dispose of them in the city." She opens the door for him, lets him go first. She raises an eyebrow at him, making sure he's noticing.

"You can put trees in your dumpster, right?"

She ignores him, leads the way through the store, pushes past the health and beauty products to the Christmas aisle.

He sighs. "You're not even getting a big one."

"Gotta start somewhere, right?"

He frowns at her but it's a thoughtful look, not true disappointment. "Okay. Three foot?"

Kate chews on the inside of her cheek and glances down the aisle. She planned on a smaller one than that, but maybe so. In these things, she should start following someone's instincts other than her own. "Okay. Three foot tree."

He grins at her and starts walking down the aisle, searching the shelves. Castle trails his fingers over silver and green tinsel, ceramic snowmen, pine-scented candles, elf mugs, poinsettias, holiday candy, and tacky ornaments. Actually, it's all rather tacky.

She follows along behind him, spots the three foot plastic tree the moment he does, sees it on his face.

It's not green. It's not even what she would call a tree.

"Oh, Kate - you need this!" He taps the box and pulls it down from the top shelf, turning to her with both arms cradling it. "It's awesome."

"It. . .lights up."

He grins. "Most Christmas trees do, you know."

"No, I mean, it's fiber optic, Castle."

"It's like a sci-fi tree," he says, still holding it close. "You gotta-"

"Castle. It's silver. And. . .pink."

"And blue. And some purple too, I think. And it's got branches; it's not just the plastic spray, but it has branches and you can hang ornaments on it. Look at the picture on the box."

Honestly, she wasn't sure she wanted a tree at all; she felt like she needed one, that it was another step on the journey. But now she actually kind of wants a tree, and that's not it. That's a piece of space age plastic, or an exhibit at the children's museum.

"Castle. This isn't Christmas. It's. . .it's. . ."

"Fine, you pick out another one. I'm getting this one."

Kate laughs, knitting her eyebrows together, but he holds on to the box. She pushes past him and debates over a few different fake trees, reading the descriptions, then settles for a three foot fir.

"It doesn't have any lights," he mutters.

"I'll get some of those tiny multi-colored LEDs. Over there. See?" Kate heads across the aisle to the long rows of Christmas lights. She picks out the faceted, cone-shaped lights, pulls them off the shelf.

"Those are good," he murmurs, somehow directly over her shoulder.

She turns and he's giving her that child-like smile, dark hair flopped over his forehead, and she's suddenly grateful her hands are full. Otherwise she would reach out and touch him, push the hair back from his brow.

"Do I get to help you put it up?" he asks, tilting his head.

"Do you even have to ask?" Kate juggles the lights, the tree, and lifts her hand up to nudge the box in his hands. "But you're not bringing that in my apartment."

"That's what you think."

* * *

><p>He sneaks decorations (and his fiber optic tree) into her apartment while she's not looking (she's changing clothes in her bedroom and so he runs back downstairs and out to the Crown Vic, pulls everything out, and runs back upstairs, making it just in time). She comes out of her bedroom with her hair twisted in a knot on top of her head, sees the stuff he's brought, and presses her mouth into that thin line that is half smile and half disapproval. When he bought the fiber optic tree, he also got a strand of maroon berries to use as garland, a handful of navy ornaments, a navy tree skirt, and a corrugated-metal maroon star topper.<p>

She sighs but doesn't stop him.

"Where are we doing this?"

"Right here in front of the window?" she murmurs, then glances around the room. "No, wait. Actually, in the dining room."

He follows her with the two tree boxes and the bag of decorations. She adjusts the advent calendar and indicates the clear side of the table in front of the window.

"Yeah," she says softly, and looks up to give him a smile. She's wearing plaid pajama pants and a sweatshirt; her feet are bare and curling on the wood floor. She seems both smaller and somehow entirely more present, more with him, than he's seen in a long time.

He helps her pull the fir tree out of the box, unwrap the limbs, arrange their wiry spokes, and fluff them up. The needles scrape a little, but she's quiet as she works beside him, studying it from all angles, adjusting a wired branch, making it perfect.

Her apartment is dark, the shutters pulled, the blinds closed, but it's also familiar and warm against the winter night. He texted his daughter from the store, so no one is waiting up on him at home; he's faintly surprised by how comfortable it is here at her place, how much he fits.

"Here," he says, and hands her the faux-velvet, navy tree skirt. "I had to pick a color theme."

She huffs a laugh at him, but takes the material, slides it under the black pot that serves as a base for the tree. He watches her brush her fingers over the material and wishes he could've gotten the chance to purchase nicer stuff, decorations not from the walgreens on the corner.

"Do you know what you're doing for Christmas?" he asks suddenly, breaking into the box of lights and pulling them out.

"I usually end up working that day or the days around it," she admits, shrugging at him. "I don't have to go in; I'm just on call. Perks of being a Detective Second Grade."

"Did you last year?"

"Was I on call? Yeah. For Christmas Eve. Christmas Day I spent with my dad at his cabin though. And I had the next two days off as well. So it was nice."

"And this year, Kate?" He just doesn't want her to be alone. Even if she is on call, even if she's got to run in for a body, he wants her to be interrupting something, wants her to have something to come home to at the end of the day.

"This year I'm headed for my dad's place on the 20th. Tuesday. Our team's on call that weekend before, so I get comp days."

"What about Christmas Day? It's a Sunday this year, and you're usually off on weekends."

"I don't know yet, Castle." She avoids his eyes, slowly threading the lights along each branch of the little tree. "I am usually off. But I might be playing catch-up all week."

"Oh no," he says softly, rubbing his forehead. He thought he planned it just right. "The Christmas party is the 16th. You guys are all on call?"

"That's Friday right?"

"Yeah."

"We're not on call until Saturday morning at six. So it's okay. Just maybe no egg nog."

He sighs loudly, but then can't help grinning again, ducks his head to look at her. "That means you're coming."

"I said I was, didn't I?"

"Yeah, but that's like. . .official."

"Fine, officially, I'm coming."

He likes to hear it. And not just for the dirty way his brain will record it to play back later.

She shakes her head at him (as if she knows) and threads the lights into the last branch at the bottom, then tucks the strand under the skirt and over the table to the wall outlet.

When she plugs it in, the red, blue, pink, green and yellow lights glow along the tree's limbs, making multi-colored displays along the walls, the back of the advent calendar, Kate's face. Castle can't help watching her as she stares at the tree, looking hypnotized by it.

"It's pretty," he says softly, not wanting to break the spell, but so grateful she included him.

"Oh. Let me get the snowflake," she murmurs and heads around him to the wooden row of apartment buildings. She reaches inside the window and pulls out the tiny snowflake ornament, giving Castle a smile that makes her eyes bright.

His breath catches; she leans in and loops the silvery thread over a branch at the top, angling the snowflake just so. She grins back at him and his chest squeezes tight.

"All right. Now for the rest of the stuff you bought," she says, holding out her hand for more.

He wants to take her home with him, pull out their three storage boxes worth of Christmas tree ornaments, let her unwrap the tissue paper from the glass balls his mother bought in Vienna, the baby's first Christmas ornament, the hand-made felt stars that an aunt sent when he was a kid, the lifesaver roll made into a reindeer, the pipe cleaner creations, Alexis's glitter and crayon first grade masterpiece, the brass spider with the missing eye, the knitted bells, and the many crazy ornaments his family has collected over the years.

He wants to tell their stories as she takes them out, one by one, and he wants - so badly - for her to be a part of those stories. Even if just by listening.

"Here, you do the garland. I'm no good at that," she murmurs, handing him the package and taking the faux-velvet navy ornaments for herself.

Castle slowly unwraps the garland from its plastic sheath, spreads it out, untangling the strand, and then starts at the top. When they're done decorating this tree, he's going to insist on putting the fiber optic one in her kitchen or something, just to prolong this moment, the two of them in her apartment, sharing a Christmas tradition.

It's only been nine days since he started this, but he feels like his life has been altered forever.

He wants her to feel the same.


	11. December 10: Calgary

**December 10 - Calgary**

* * *

><p>Even though it's Saturday, she can't help waking early - like it's Christmas morning and she's three again - but she makes herself slow down and enjoy every aspect of her morning routine.<p>

And, just like the last nine days, she opens the window with a sense of terrifying joy, as if her life might be delivered some mortal blow by whatever he's hidden in the calendar.

This time there's nothing.

Kate pauses, shocked at the disappointment that pours over her, but her eyes even then manage to sweep the little room inside the wooden replica and discover the small folded note. A note.

_Space. If you want it._

It's. . .she. . .space?

He's giving her space, if she wants it.

Kate sinks down into the chair and brushes her fingers over the note, staring at his blocky script. If she's being honest about all of this, she expected some grand gesture for December 10th, some kind of way he could memorialize or celebrate ten days of advent, ten days of whatever this was that keeps pulling her away from the careful and deliberate path and towards this man.

Instead, he's giving her space.

Because he knows her. Because she closes up for the summer. She walls herself in and makes her heart a fortress.

Because she needs time to make peace with herself, with the step she's taken forward.

So she'll take it. Since this time he's offering it; she'll take it.

* * *

><p>Space. But she picks up her phone and hovers her thumb over his name.<p>

Space but she abandons texting him in favor of calling him, voice to voice, her thankfulness in the soft tones and his pleasure in the low ones.

"Detective," he murmurs. "It's Saturday. And early."

"I've already opened the next one," she cuts in. "Thank you."

"This doesn't really feel like space, Beckett."

"It will," she laughs. "I'm going to meet my dad halfway. Have brunch with him."

"Oh, that's a good idea," he says. She hears a twinkle in his eye, like Castle himself engineered this plan. "As a father of a daughter, I wholeheartedly approve."

She slides her coat on and gathers her keys, her wrist wallet, checks the gun at her hip. She's not on duty and not on call either, but this isn't the time to start going out unarmed. Not for Beckett. She needs that gun in its holster more than she needs air sometimes.

Someone wants her dead but this is the holidays; it's almost Christmas, and Castle-

"You just now leaving?" he says, starting their conversation back up again.

"Walking out the door. I'll play today's song in the car."

She hears a groan of a mattress (she woke him up; he's in bed), then rustling on his end. "Ah, yes. Uh. Don't try to understand the lyrics, Kate. I'm not sure they're meant to make sense, just to fill in the sound."

She chuckles and locks the door behind her. "Oh? So why in the world did you add it to my Christmas playlist?"

"Not every song is supposed to mean something," he defends.

Oh. "I wish they did." It pops out of her mouth before she can censor herself; she sighs and closes her eyes, pausing in the hallway.

"Don't you cherish me to sleep. Never keep your eyelids clipped."

"What?" she startles, her eyes flying open.

"Yeah, see? Crazy words. Craaaazy words."

She chuffs a laugh and starts walking again, heading for the stairs. She can't help pulling her phone away and putting her hand on her weapon when she sees the missing bulb and the dark steps, but when she checks, it's clear.

"Uh. . .Kate?"

"Sorry," she murmurs, flustered by her paranoia. "Had to move the phone away. What did you say?"

"Nothing important. More crazy lyrics. Never mind, because the song itself is beautiful. And haunting. And you know? Really great for a drive upstate. Roads are bad up-"

"I know, Castle. I checked the weather report online."

"I've got the road closings up-"

"Space, Castle?"

She can hear the long silence on his end, part confusion and part waiting. Then he laughs, loud, a little dryly, and she can hear him gasp in a breath. "Oh my gosh. I didn't hear the comma. And I thought, Space Castle? Really? Wouldn't that be so much fun?"

She rolls her eyes and crosses the lobby, past the mailboxes, to the front door. "What is a space castle even supposed to be?"

"I don't know! But I want one. It. Him. Her?"

"Don't press your luck."

"That was my favorite game show. Retro. You remember?"

"No whammies."

"You *do* know it."

"Um, of course. Big bucks and no whammies."

"I always wanted to be a contestant," he sighs.

"It's no skill whatsoever. All luck."

"Best kind."

"I hate those," she admits. "I need some control over my fate."

He laughs, his voice rich and deep, maybe sleep-ridden. "You would. And of course, I love that kind of game. Anything can happen. The great equalizer."

"I'm at my car, Castle," she sighs, unlocking the door and pressing her ear to her shoulder, the phone trapped between them.

"Okay," he sighs.

_The phone trapped between them. _They've spent a lot of the last ten days on the phone.

"Hey, when I get back. . ." She swallows down the rest of her words. Stupid. Today was supposed to be about space. Space. Time to slow down. Process.

"When you get back?" His question holds no expectation, not even a hint. He's asking because she started it. She can tell that he thinks it's something mundane and schedule-oriented.

"When I get back, want to get dinner?"

"Are you asking me out on a date, Detective Beckett?"

"Shut up, Castle. I'll take that as a yes."

"So will I, Beckett."

She hangs up on him and slides behind the wheel.

Wait. It *wasn't* her asking him out on a date, was it?

Was it?

* * *

><p>Kate hugs her father, arms coming up at his back, squeezing tight.<p>

"Katie, how beautiful you look."

"You're getting maudlin, Dad. And we haven't even started," she teases, but she squeezes him tighter.

When she breaks away to sit across from him, his eyes are grey and deep like winter lakes. She smiles at him just as the waitress brings over two plates of pancakes, blueberries drizzled over hers, strawberries sliced on his.

"Took the liberty," he says, winking at her.

"Perfect. Can I have some milk?" Kate gives the waitress a smile.

"Coming right up. Anything else?"

At their mutual shake of the head, the waitress leaves them to it. Kate breathes in the scent of hot blueberries and pancakes, butter melting between the stacks.

"I got your letter, Katie."

She opens her eyes, breath catching in her chest. "Yeah?"

"I'm so glad you sent it."

She sighs. "My therapist made me."

He laughs. "You know I'm proud of you for that. For getting help when you needed it. I left it until it was nearly too late, for myself. But Kate, I had no idea about half of these things-"

"Dad. I can't - I don't want to talk about it. That's why I wrote it."

"I know. I get it. I could recognize the therapy phrases in what you said. I'm still glad to know this stuff. I want us to have that relationship we used have, too."

She doesn't know what to say. The waitress interrupts with her milk and Kate takes a long gulp of it to erase the fresh swirl of frustration that has been stirred up. She doesn't want to come here and talk about the ages-old issues. They're not really the thing.

"My alcoholism robbed you of your chance to grieve, Katie. And I want you to have that time you need to go through it now. But I want you to talk to me about this stuff. That's the first step to us getting that back."

She nods; she knows this. This is the same stuff the therapist has been pointing her towards for weeks now. "He's making me keep a journal. I spend one night a week doing homework - writing in that stupid thing. I feel like I'm in high school."

"So a letter to me was one of your assignments?"

"Yeah," she laughs and raises her eyes to him. She doesn't want to disappoint him; her father, her dad. She's never wanted it to be like this. "Sorry?"

"No, I think it's funny. It's great. Believe me, I did my share of letter writing in AA."

She nods, grateful for safer ground. His therapy, not hers.

And then, just like her father always does, he brings it right back. Relentless. She forgets sometimes that her father was an attorney too. He knows how to interrogate. "So how's the therapy going, sweetheart? Is it helping?"

She scratches at her forehead, shoves a bite of pancake into her mouth. She's surprised when she can taste the rich batter, the fluffy lightness, the butter and blueberries. She halfway expected it to turn to ash on her tongue, just like most food has tasted after a therapy session.

"Honestly, I hate it. Every time I leave, I spend the rest of the day barely surviving. I'm an emotional wreck after a session. I tell myself I'm not going back again, but then a week later, I'm feeling pretty confident and in control, and something hits me out of the blue and I'm running back."

"Yeah. Katie, that's how it goes."

"I hate it. I just want to be done. Over."

"It takes work."

She sighs and sits back, swallowing another bite. "You know those times we went to Bloomingdale's when I was like five or six and the escalators were always broken?"

Her father tilts his head as he chews. "It only happened twice, but yeah. You kicked up a fuss about it. Totally appalled."

"Well, it felt like, to me, those things were always broken. We had to climb up the steps, and I felt so small, and they were so steep, I use to imagine I was climbing a mountain, like Maria in 'The Sound of Music.' That when I got to the top, I'd see the Von Trapp house."

Her father grins. "Yeah, okay, I do remember the steps being pretty steep. Didn't know you had that little fantasy going in your head though."

Kate smiles slowly back at him, then shakes her head, picking at a blueberry with her fork. "I feel like that now. Stuck at the bottom of this broken escalator, the stairs too steep for me. I'm doing all this work just to climb one measly step, while everyone else is taking their escalators straight to the top."

She cuts another bite of pancake and pushes it in her mouth, dwelling on that image. Her father's hand sneaks across the table and squeezes hers, releases it.

"Therapy brings it all up again," he says quietly. "And yeah, it's work. It's an effort. But you'll find that the stairs get less steep. Or maybe it's that your muscles grow stronger, your legs longer."

She nods, but chews on her lower lip, glances upward as her eyes burn. This isn't going to be about crying today.

"It's just so frustrating because I want to be up *there*. I want us to get there together. But I'm stuck down here. And every time I glance over, he's just gliding up his escalator, effortless and easy, just that much further ahead of me every time. The gap between us widening."

Kate rubs her hands over her face, speaks with the heels of her hands pressed into her eyes, seeing it all too clearly in her head.

"I'm doing all this work, and it's just so easy for him, and he pulls further and further away from me - and I am so pissed at him for it. I am so pissed off."

She scrubs at her face and drops her hands, surprised to find her father listening with that look on his face.

"What?"

"I haven't heard you talk this much about a guy since senior year of high school-"

She groans in mock horror. "Oh no. Rob. How could I forget? Rob. . .Rob - what was his name?"

"I don't know. But you went on and on to your mother and me about prom, about Rob, about your dress and the limo and your song-"

"Oh no, don't remind me," she moans, but it lifts into mortified laughter.

"How cute he was and how he passed you notes in class like you guys were in middle school; how he drove you home from-"

"Okay, okay, stop. I get it. I need to talk to you more often. Sheesh." She rolls her eyes at her father but can't help the grin stretching her face. It does feel good to talk to him like this again, to be the daughter.

He takes another bite, studying her with that smile in his eyes. "So, Katie-girl, you realize you just told me you and Rick-"

Oh no.

She closes her eyes. "I didn't mean. . .I wasn't. . ."

"You like him," he father says.

Well that's stupid. Of course she likes him.

"Kate. I know you don't remember much. When you were shot, we all. . .there was a lot of confusion and we didn't know right at first. I stood up to go to you and he had tackled you, trying to save you, and I heard him-"

She puts her hand up, her heart pounding. "Dad, please don't."

Her father closes his mouth. He doesn't say anything more, but she reads the analysis in his eyes, how he studies her, how he knows her. And he reads the truth. Of course he does. Kate sees the flicker of disappointment in his eyes; she hates it.

Denial isn't pretty. Not on anyone. And her father doesn't like seeing it on her.

"You're mad at him for being able to do it so easily," he says finally, his voice soft but with steel behind it.

She's already given that much away. "Yes." Her fist clenches around her fork; she pushes another bite into her mouth.

"I don't think it's easy for him, Kate."

Of course it is. He just gets to blurt it out while she's dying then follow her around like a puppy all day at work, making moon eyes at her and saying suggestive things and leaving it all up to *her* when she's in no condition-

"Honey, he's been divorced twice. You think that makes this easy on him? I think it makes it harder. Trust me."

Kate pauses, lifts her eyes to her father. "What?"

"He's got two failed marriages behind him, so he's going to look at you and be afraid to ruin things, to make things sour. He knows how good he is at it. Remember me telling stories about my college girlfriend, Janice?"

Pancakes slide down her throat. "Uh. Yes." Sort of?

"Janice and I were doomed from the beginning. We both had been in serious relationships before that hadn't worked out well. At all. Mine was with my high school sweetheart and I knew - if I couldn't make it work with her, how the hell was *this* going to work? And Janice had her own issues. Looking back on it, I'm pretty sure her previous boyfriend had been emotionally abusive with her."

Okay, okay, so what? Kate wants to hurry this up, make her father get to the point faster. There is so much similarity between her father and Castle - this spinning a tale, setting things up. Being the softie. That's her dad. Her mother was the one to enforce bedtime and tell her she couldn't watch that show.

"When I started dating your mother, I took a lot of that attitude into it with me. Your mom thought I was nuts, but I made her slow things down, keep it really low pressure for a long time. Kate, we were just good friends for three years. Absurd. It was absurd. I wish I had that time back, do it whole-heartedly."

Kate chokes down her pancake, blinking at her plate. Three years of good friends. Absurdly good friends.

"But all I could think was that I'd had these two great and perfect relationships that turned out to be so flawed and awful for both of us. And I wanted to be sure with your mom, wanted to be clear. But I was the one to tell her first - to start things. Because it had to be done; it was ridiculous to be as close and familiar as we were and *not* be together. And if you don't think that stepping up like that takes work-"

Her father shrugs at her, giving her that twist of his mouth that says he knows all too well.

Of course relationships take work. She's. . .but there isn't a relationship between them, so it's not about that. Is it? It's not. He's her partner. They should be doing this together.

"I don't want to. . .be outpaced by him. What happens when he gets to the top alone? He hangs out there, waiting on me? For who knows how long? Probably. . .most likely. . .he leaves. Starts walking where he wants to go, until he's entirely out of view."

Kate takes another bite of pancakes, finds it hard to swallow down. She sips at her milk to ease its passage, but the tightness in her throat doesn't leave her.

"Katie. I don't think he's that far ahead of you. That's what I'm saying here. You might look up and see how far you have to go, but I think you're not spending enough time looking back at how far you've come."

Kate glances behind her involuntarily, as if she could actually see it, the vision of her progress laid out before her.

"And haven't you done all that together? The two of you. I don't think you get to the top and go on about your business, holding hands and skipping off down the hall. I think life, and love, I think it's about that climbing upward. The climb, Kate, that's where you want to be."

Her fork clatters to her plate; she scrambles to grab it back up, blushing, furious with herself and stubborn enough to still be trying to find ways to deny everything that's come out of her father's mouth, all the implications for herself, for Castle-

"If you're still angry. Maybe you should write him a letter too."

Oh no. No, no no. She presses her mouth into a line to hold back the _please don't make me, Daddy_ that wants to come out, lifts her eyes to her father.

"You don't have to mail it, sweetheart. But it's good to get it out, isn't it? Didn't it help just writing your letter to me?"

"Yes."

"So give yourself permission to be angry at him for the space of a letter. Then see what comes to take its place."

He's right. She wrote that letter to her father, the final draft carefully edited to preserve at least some of her father's dignity and feelings, but the first one - the original - it was like a breath of fresh air had entered her stale lungs.

What has come to take its place, lately, is this desire to tell her father everything. Just like she has today. To be the daughter again, to listen to her father's voice and gain his insight. For it to be like it was. Before his alcoholism, his grief, made him into a stranger.

She likes what's come to take the place of her anger at him, her feeling of betrayal. Those things were deep, were tied to her mother's death and her drive for rightness, for a way to make the people responsible pay for what they did. Rightness. Because so much in her life isn't right.

But Castle.

He is.

Right. Right for her.

"All right, sweetheart. Let's avoid the landmines for the rest of our brunch together. Okay? How about your friend Lanie?"

Kate lifts her eyes back to her father, gives him a pressed-lip smile. His answering grin is like a pressure valve releasing the build-up in her chest. She puts her right hand to the spot at her chest, massaging it absent-mindedly, and shakes her head at her father.

"She and Esposito broke up."

"Crying shame. I bet it was Lanie, wasn't it? That girl is just like you."

Kate rolls her eyes at her father. Apparently, avoiding landmines isn't truly on his agenda.

"Dad."

He grins. "What? You want it to be like it was? I'm not censoring myself anymore. I'm telling you straight. Like I always did."

She sighs.

Great.

But she's smiling.


	12. December 11: White Winter Hymnal

**December 11 - White Winter Hymnal**

* * *

><p>Kate unfurls the carefully folded paper with stiff fingers, watches the edges crackle. It's his handwriting, which sends a curling warmth through her. She spent last night writing him a letter he'll never read, and then burning it in a candle's flame and knocking the ashes into the kitchen sink. She ran water and washed it down the drain and now. . .<p>

His handwriting isn't a letter though; it's a poem. He's left her a poem for today.

This is. . .strange. She wants to call him and ask him to write an exposition of this, 'One Time' by Christian Wilman, tell her what it means:

_I do not know how to come closer to God_  
><em>except by standing where a world is ending<em>  
><em>for one man. It is still dark,<em>  
><em>and for an hour I have listened<em>  
><em>to the breathing of the woman I love beyond<em>  
><em>my ability to love. Praise to the pain<em>  
><em>scalding us toward each other, the grief<em>  
><em>beyond which, please God, she will live<em>  
><em>and thrive. And praise to the light that is not<em>  
><em>yet, the dawn in which one bird believes,<em>  
><em>crying not as if there had been no night<em>  
><em>but as if there were no night in which it had not been.<em>

Kate sits down hard in the dining room chair, stares at the poem.

_the woman I love beyond my ability to love._

Why-? But. . .no. There's no why. She knows. She's known.

Kate smooths the lines of the folds in the paper, pressing her palms to the table. _Beyond which she will live and thrive._ He must - he has to be thinking about this summer. He must be saying something about this summer, about her, about the thing she knows but can't figure out how to admit knowing.

He knows her. Because this is it. _I do not know how to come closer to God except by standing where a world is ending for one man_. This is what it is to be a homicide detective, to see how a life has been lived and is over, and why it is over now. When she puts the pieces together and figures out the mystery, it is like touching some great and larger mystery. The mystery of existence.

She can be fearless in front of a mystery. Because all mysteries are resolved, eventually. Even her mother's mystery will be resolved, will be made known. She believes it, like the bird in the poem, believes that eventually. . .the nights, all these terrible nights, will bring the dawn and sunlight and warmth.

She believes, in front of the crime scene, she believes and is not afraid.

It's the rest of her life - messed up and jumbled - that keeps her fearful.

Of this - the love beyond her ability to love.

* * *

><p>She realizes she's no longer angry with him. He's striding forward across the grass, sunglasses on to protect his eyes against the rare morning sun. The burn of flame to her letter must have burnt out her frustration as well; she no longer faults him for his grief that morning in the cemetery. She just doesn't know what's there to replace it. It feels a lot like resignation.<p>

If she's honest with herself, then she can admit it. When he stands beside her at the crime scene this Sunday morning, after she's read that poem and unwittingly reflected, Kate thinks it's not enough that he keeps showing up, a bird of belief, a bird that loves the mystery as much as she does, and works to find the light, but never gets the girl.

A bird that waits.

How can waiting be enough for him?

Or maybe she's just exhausted, and not able to thread coherence together this morning.

She takes the coffee cup from him without smiling, feeling restless and discontent with _enough._

Because it's not enough. It's not.

It's love beyond her ability to love.

And she doesn't know how to fix it.

* * *

><p>Castle hesitates at her door. They spent their Sunday morning and afternoon at the 12th, piecing together what little information they could on their John Doe. She has only just gotten home, and he's basically following right after her. But Castle gave her space yesterday - like opening a cage and letting the bird go free - only to have Kate show up at his loft late yesterday afternoon, her look honest and welcoming even if her eyes were still guarded. She said she had a good talk with her father, but didn't say any more about it.<p>

She made him get dressed (he was in sweats and a tshirt), and she took him a few blocks over to a little dive with a mixed menu. He had spaghetti while Kate ordered lemon-zest fish and herb rice with steamed vegetables. The table was wide enough, but their knees kept touching (he might have done that on purpose). She didn't seem to mind.

It was a date. He's pretty certain. Richard Castle knows what a date feels like. He's just - he's just never showed up the next night and demanded another.

New territory for him.

Castle brought her coffee this morning at the crime scene and was surprised by the seriousness in her eyes, surprised and worried when he couldn't seem to laugh it out of her.

He checked his schedule to jog his memory about the gifts, and he saw she's gotten the poem he found that year Kyra left him. He remembers loving the words but not understanding the emotion, and somehow the poem resurfaced in his memory this summer. He'd dug it out and had kept the anthology on his desk, the poem bookmarked with a bus ticket. Because this summer - he realized he does know. The emotion behind the poem. He read it this summer over again and every line was a bullet, every line too much -

_please God, she will live_

He's got to stop thinking about this. He didn't come over to her apartment tonight to be mournful and desperate. He's not desperate; he's actually more hopeful than he's been in a good long while, and maybe it's because of the way her body gravitates towards his, the way her hand brushes his forearm as if it wants to touch and go on touching and never stop touching. Maybe it's the date - non-date - whatever last night's dinner was. Dinner with him after he gave her space.

Part of her wants it. Part of her must be willing. He's not blind; he sees it in her now in ways she never let him see before. He just can't let himself think about it too much. He just needs to keep inching forward, one step at a time.

So he knocks on her apartment door.

Kate opens, breathing hard, hair in disarray, sweat clinging to the line of her throat and settling, shiny, in her clavicles.

"Yoga?" he asks, because he knows it is. He knows it. He likes knowing.

She nods, gulping, waves him in as she heads back to the kitchen counter for water. He has a rush of deja vu that makes him happy. A writer and his muse.

Castle shuts the door behind him but doesn't lock it; hopefully they'll be going right back out. Or well, after she showers.

"What's up?" she asks, taking another long draught of water.

"I have a plan."

Her eyes cut to the Advent calendar. "I've noticed."

He grins because that wasn't what he meant, but yeah, _yeah, Kate, you're my plan._

"For tonight." _For you. For tonight. For us._

"Yeah?"

"If you want to come."

"Where are we going?"

That's already a yes, isn't it? It is. Castle reaches out and takes the water from her, turns her around towards her bedroom. "Go get a shower. You're smelly. And sweaty. Which is kinda hot, but doesn't work for where I want to take you."

She glances at him over her shoulder with an approximate facsimile of her usual Beckett Death Stare, but it's so weak that all it does is make his hands tighten on her shoulders, all it does is give him the courage to walk her through the living room a little ways, the closest to her bedroom and its sanctity he has ever been.

At the door she stops, resisting him, and turns. "What do I. . .need to wear?"

Nothing.

"Ah. Whatever you want." Better answer. "Jeans, sweats, I don't care. It's not fancy. We might have to walk some."

Her lips are curling into that smile of mild amusement; one of his favorites. He's flirted with creating a Kate Beckett Smile Meter, complete with sappy descriptions for each instance or occasion, and then an indication of the likelihood of it happening again. This one? The Mild Amusement Smile? Happens allll the time.

"All right, Castle. You win." Then she shoves him out of the doorway and closes the door behind her.

Castle saunters back towards her office, perusing, always curious and perhaps too nosy for his own good. But it's not like Kate doesn't know this. So she must be okay with it. He sees a couple unpaid bills, a black journal with a pen on top, her computer humming so it's not been put to sleep but fallen into idle on its own. He glances up to the bulletin board and stumbles to a stop.

She's tacked up the poem right at eye level. She's put up all of his notes there too. The flash drive is held up with push pins like a shelf against the cork. The stupid slips of paper where he felt the need to explain the gift for that day behind the window. She's kept them all.

_Space._

He walks back into her living room and sits down on her couch, feeling at ease. At home.

He feels welcomed inside.

* * *

><p>He doesn't take her to Rockefeller Center. Everyone does that; she's seen it. The tree lighting is televised every year. No, that's not special enough, not big enough.<p>

"Are you taking me out of Manhattan?" she says, that raised eyebrow sound to her voice.

Castle is driving. Yeah, buddy. He is *driving.* Ha. New record. Of course, it's his own car, so he better be allowed to drive. (Though that's never a foregone conclusion.)

"I am."

"Why?"

"Best thing ever."

"Castle."

"You'll see."

She falls silent for the rest of the long ride, but it's the good kind. They have this way of filling the stillness together, filling it up with looks or a touch or just nothing. Even their nothing - together - is more than nothing.

When he gets off 278 and heads south, she glances at him. "Brooklyn?"

"You'll see." She'll see before they even get there. 12th Avenue and 84th. Castle is determined to park on 11th and have them walk the block in. Also because today is the 11th and he likes the symmetry.

"What's in Brooklyn?" She just can't stop her curiosity, can she? He finds it endearing, which is strange. When did this thing between them turn tender? Turn him so soft?

"Something good. You'll see."

"You have to give me a hint."

"I don't have to do anything."

"Castle," she says, and seriously, it sounds like a whine. Like he's rubbing off on her. Which is thrilling. A whiny Beckett is a side of her he doesn't know. Another layer to the onion.

"No clues. You're too quick. You'll ruin the surprise."

"I don't like surprises."

"You say that, but you really do."

She huffs at him, but there's no conviction to it. Castle manages to get as close as he possibly dares before pulling over and parallel parking, pretty well, actually.

"Come on."

He waits until she opens her car door, then he gets out as well, moves around the hood of the car to take her hand. He doesn't even pretend that he's doing it to tug her forward; he's taking her hand because he wants to hold her hand.

(They might have had a dinner date last night, so he's holding her hand tonight.)

She curls her fingers in his and for a moment, he hates himself for getting her gloves at all. At least these are fingerless, so he can feel every whorl of her fingerprints. He starts them walking down the block, eager to show her. He doesn't stop when she gives a soft noise of wonder, doesn't slow down.

"Oh, look at the lights," she murmurs.

Dyker Heights has done it again this year - over the top Christmas lights displays on every house. As they leave 11th Ave and his car behind them, the block ahead seems to be on fire with holiday cheer. Inflatables, wreaths, spotlights in green or red gels, icicle lights, stars, a looping train with Santa at the engine, nativity scenes, messages, and finally - the facades of the houses themselves are nearly overwhelmed with Christmas lights.

White, twinkling, multi-colored, blue, green, yellow, alternating, faceted, mini-

"Look at this. All this. . .what in the world?" Kate stops in the sidewalk and slowly turns around, glancing down the cross street to glimpse even more lighted displays.

The white house in front of them is set regally back from the street (as much as it can be in Brooklyn); the columns holding up the second floor balcony are wrapped in green lights, every window has a green wreath with a red floppy bow, and the yard boasts green and red spotlights that paint the walls with Christmas color.

Next door is themed like a Redneck Christmas. The juxtaposition is startling enough to make him laugh. The reindeer are getting drunk on the front lawn, Santa Claus is featured passed out in an outhouse, and Mrs. Claus is wearing daisy dukes and carrying a shotgun. All outlined in lights. The roof lights spell out: _Ho! Ho! Ho!_

He can vaguely hear music playing too. John Denver's "Please Daddy, Don't Get Drunk This Christmas." Castle laughs and lets go of Kate's hand to wander closer, and just as he expected, "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" plays next - he sees now that one of the reindeers is driving a car; there's a lumpy thing under the front tires, shoes and a dress. He chuckles, turns his head to share it with her, and finds Kate still in front of the white house, staring up at the lights.

She's taken off her gloves; he sees them sitcking out of the pocket of her coat. Her breath frosts in the air, a slight smile on her lips. And-

And Kate's raised a hand to her hair, slowly twirling a few strands around her finger.

Castle is at her side before he even realizes he's moving, finds himself placing a hand at her hip, grabbing the material of her coat in a fist.

"Are you twirling your hair?" he murmurs.

She startles and glances at him. "No. Yes. What?"

"Nothing," he whispers, elation pouring through him, a live wire of elation. Electric and stunning. Hopeful.

She pushes the strand of hair behind her ear and turns to him, her hand finding his on her waist. "You okay?" Her fingers squeeze around his wrist, but don't make him move.

Castle nods. More than.

"Ready to walk?" he says instead, letting go of her coat, leaving the cove of her hip to take her hand again.

"Yes." She's grinning back at him and starting forward down the sidewalk, tugging him after her.

No need. He'll follow her anywhere.

* * *

><p>The Christmas lights color his face in a wash of blue and purple; he smiles. She can see it all over him, like the lights, every drop of it.<p>

How he loves her.

She can do this. She can.

This isn't the first step; she was wrong. Kate isn't at the bottom. This is halfway up; all she has to do is keep taking the next step.

And here he is - walking beside her.

She knows now what fills the space left by her anger.

It's hope.


	13. December 12: When My Thoughts Drift

**December 12 - When My Thoughts Drift To You**

* * *

><p>The darkest day of the year.<p>

No. Actually, that's December 21st, isn't it? Oh wait, this year it's December 22nd - he looked it up for some reason back in June. The shortest day, the longest night. When the earth is tilted away from the sun. So it's not today - it just feels like it is. Castle's spent all day thinking about her, but there was no new and strange dead body, and so nothing to bring him to the precinct (but her.

He wants to see her. He wants to catch sight of that intent expression as she studies the board, the one that twists her mouth for thinking, the one that narrows her eyes and draws crows feet at the corners. He wants to sit beside her on her desk and feel the warmth of her arm nearly pressed against his. He wants to give her outrageous theories and watch her try not to smile at him.)

And he would've shown up, like he always does, for the case she got on Sunday, but Gates is seriously sick of seeing him there every day for the last two weeks, and she threatened to kick him out if he showed up today.

This was the worst day ever to not be able to see her. Kate. True, last night he was softening her up a bit, trying to make today's surprise that much easier to swallow. Today's gift, twelve days into the calendar, is like turning a corner. Pivotal. It's audacious and it supposes too much, but he wants, so very badly, to suppose everything.

But he's stuck at home.

And sickeningly enough, he misses her.

He feels her absence all day. He doesn't know what to do with himself. He could write, and in fact he does sit down with his laptop, but he's not inspired. He stares out the window at the rare sunlight in the brilliant blue sky, sees his own reflection in the glass. He gets on the internet and thinks about emailing her, but it's Monday and that's never a good day for email.

He pulls out his phone and tweets something about maybe picking up tigerclaws in honor of last Monday's strange brush-with-death adventure (instead of bearclaws) because he knows that Kate checks his twitter sometimes, even though she won't get one herself. A lurker.

He could call, but they've done a lot of calling back and forth and she might be tired of it.

He could text. He wants to text, but he can't think of anything clever that doesn't also sound desperate.

So he puts his phone on his bedside table and tries to stay away from it. He heads back to his study and ignores his laptop some more.

Castle wanders out of the study and towards the kitchen, makes himself lunch. He debates ordering something for the 12th, but he's not sure he should be reminding Gates of his presence. Or Kate either. Maybe. He's not sure. She looked touched. Last night. She looked touched by the spirit of Christmas, soaking up the atmosphere, happy.

Which makes him happy. But it also makes him cautious. He doesn't want to push too fast. Not just for her, but for himself as well. He's not that great with relationships that last - he does better joking around and keeping it light, playing the fool - and he's got a history that warns him to take this easy, go slowly, make sure they're steady.

He has a tendency to jump in with both feet, not even looking first; they could break apart on the rocks in two feet of water if he's not careful. She wants someone to dive into it with, but if they dive into a shallow pool, they'll both break their necks. This is too important to not be certain he's got the depth they need - Kate is too important.

Dwelling on all the ways he's lacking, doesn't leave him with much of an appetite, but he eats a sandwich and unloads the dishwasher. He does a load of laundry, folds it, puts everything away. He goes back to his open laptop and sits down with it again just as the sun sets, but still he's got nothing.

The white page and all the ways he feels Kate's absence.

He closes his eyes and remembers the way the lights twinkled in her eyes, so cliche that he'd never write it in a book, but still the beautiful truth. Greens and golds and pinks reflected in her dark, dilated pupils. He held her hand all night, kept their palms warm clasped together; she would wander away to see another house or to stay behind at a display, but she always came back to him.

But today. His gift for today. She hasn't called him either, has she? She must have already opened the window and seen the gift; she knows what it is. Still nothing.

Alexis comes home after school and gives him a huge hug; she apparently can tell he's been here all day. She helps him make dinner, tells him she's glad they can eat together. He remembers that he canceled on her to help Kate with the tree. She doesn't seem to mind, but she does study him as they eat, looking for signs that he's cracked of course. She knows what he's doing; she helped him come up with a few ideas, but she didn't seem to think it would very well.

But he believes. He has to.

He interrogates Alexis about the colleges she visited with his mother, wanting a distraction from the hole he's felt all day, the space where Kate should be. After dinner though, Alexis disappears upstairs to study and he's left to clean up.

This distracts him a little; he focuses on the way the hot water scalds his fingers as he rinses their plates in the sink. He loads the dishwasher again, puts away the salt and pepper, the salad dressing, the wine. He turns off the gas logs in the fireplace, checks the locks on the doors, wishes Kate were here.

And now it's late and he's worn out from thinking so much today, scaring himself silly with horror stories of Kate being appalled by the gift and throwing out the whole calendar. And really, it's ridiculous. Go to bed, Rick. It's late.

Castle finds Alexis upstairs and kisses her good-night, makes small talk about her exams. She had Calculus this morning; she says she did fine. She keeps looking at him funny. Tomorrow is Philosophy and Ethics, which she's not so sure about. He tells her not to stay up too late, even though he knows she'll stay up as late as she needs to. It's been a long time since he told her when to go to bed - it's a sign of how distracted he is. She's too sweet to call him on it.

Rick heads back downstairs, shuffles past the closed laptop that hasn't seen any action today, and tugs his shirt off as he gets to his bedroom. He's always been pleased and content in this room, the layout of the space, the colors, the prints on the wall. Tonight though, it just feels lonely.

He hates solitude. He hates it. He needs people, a crowd, attention; he derives energy from being social. He knows Kate is the opposite of him. Still, he's been trying to respect her boundaries.

Pajama pants on, tshirt, he pulls back the comforter and gets in bed, lays on his back for a long time, staring at the ceiling, thinking about her, about waking up to her last Monday, feeling her hand on his chest and her arm under his head. He was fuzzy and warm and not quite aware; all he knew was that it was her. He could feel her, it was her scent clinging to his skin. And all he wanted to do was luxuriate in it, drift in the bubble of drowsiness that included just the two of them.

And then she woke him up. And it was gone.

He's just drifting off in some of that remembered bubble when his phone vibrates wickedly on his bedside table. He startles and flops his arm out to grab it, answering with a thick throat. "Yeah. Castle."

"First class, huh?" she murmurs then.

So she *has* opened the next window; he spent all day wondering and she was silent about it, but now she's calling him. "Yeah, first class. And a four star hotel too. Might not have mentioned that."

"You neglected that bit of information in the note attached to your fake movie tickets. Is this a red carpet thing?"

"Course," he grunts. "I wouldn't be flying you to LA for a pithy, run of the mill-"

"That means I need a dress."

"Does that mean it's a yes?"

"I didn't see a question on your note."

"Oh. No. It wasn't a question, was it?"

"So are you asking? Because if you're asking, then I should-"

"I'm not asking," he says quickly. "I'm telling. It's January 1st, New Year's Day. Did I put that in the note?"

"No," she says softly. "You said, _Redeemable for one round-trip first class ticket to LA for the Nikki Heat Premiere. _But with all that, you were remarkably uninformative, Castle."

"Yeah, well, that box behind the window is tiny and I couldn't get a lot of words in there."

"You promised these little gifts weren't expensive," she says, sounding both stern and soft at the same time. How does her voice do that?

"No, I didn't. I said they were nothing to worry about, that I made most of them. And I totally made that one too. I made reservations." He grins and waits for it.

She gives that snorting sound and he can practically hear the not-eye-roll that accompanies it. This one not a press of her lips, but that pursed lip thing, where her eyes kind of narrow at him but her mouth is quirking. He loves that one too. He loves them all.

"Castle. You've already booked the flight and-?"

"And the hotel. Yes."

She sighs. Castle crosses his fingers and turns over in bed, pressing his cheek to the pillow, pulling the covers back up. His room is cold this evening.

"Where are you, Kate?"

"What?"

"It's late. Are you at the precinct or-"

"I'm at home. Sitting at my dining room table in front of this monstrosity my partner dropped off without asking-"

"Yeah, you have a clever partner."

"I have a melodramatic partner-"

"Best kind." He can't stop the yawn that works its way out.

"I woke you up, didn't I?" she says quickly, sounding pleased.

"Yeah. But no worries. I'm still in bed and the second we hang up, I'm certain I'll fall right back to sleep."

"Oh, I'm not worried. But who says I'm gonna hang up and let you?"

"Kate Beckett, that's just mean."

"I'm going to keep you on the phone until you get a second wind, or you fall asleep on me."

"If you were under me, I wouldn't be sleepy one bit. Talk about a second wind."

There's a silence on the line that makes him instantly regret his uncensored mouth. Stupid, stupid mouth.

Then she chokes out a laugh; he wonders what it means.

"Castle," she hums, and her voice is rich and dark and _oh_, he's in trouble. "Castle, you have no idea."

Wow. He's missed sexy-teasing Kate. A lot.

He has the feeling she's about to hang up, so he hurries and says the thing he's wanted to say all day long. "I missed you today, Kate."

She's mute, but he can hear her breathing on the other end. Steady, even breathing. Not panicked, not startled. Just there.

"Me too, Castle."

And then she really has hung up.

He presses the phone to his chest, blinks in the darkness. She missed him too.

And wow. She's going to the premiere with him.


	14. December 13: Your Beauty Trumped

**December 13 - Your Beauty Trumped My Doubt**

* * *

><p>The day is sharp, jagged edges that prick her fingers when she doesn't handle them carefully. Usually, she's better than this; usually, she's paying strict attention.<p>

She's not today. And so it cuts her when she's not expecting it.

First, it's his note to her in the advent calendar's window. She sticks it in her pocket and tries not to think about it.

Then, it's Lanie and Esposito complaining about each other to Kate via text or snarled half-sentences. It's Espo texting from a crime scene. It's Lanie going off in her ear when all she called for is an update on how quickly the medical examiner can get to the fresh body.

This is what it's like, she thinks. This is what it looks like, only Kate won't have the luxury of working in an entirely different department, in an entirely different building from him. This is what happens when it all goes wrong, when it dies.

Finally, like a last straw, Castle doesn't show up until after nine, fresh coffee in his hands, but by this time Kate had already given up on him. She got her own coffee on her way back from the crime scene he couldn't drag his ass out of bed to attend. (And yet last night when she called, he said he missed her. Not enough apparently.) Two crime scenes in the last three days, and it's doing something to her - something his presence, his irreverent jokes can usually dispel. But where was he? A note in today's window, that's all.

She felt justified a mere two hours ago, but now - faced with the disappointment in his eyes - she wishes she'd been able to suck down the coffee, throw it away, and pretend she hadn't caved to her body's caffeine craving. She wishes she had made a different choice.

"Well," he says softly, hesitating in front of her desk. "It is almost 9:30. You shouldn't have to wait forever."

If it were any other day, she would roll her eyes at him and tell him to answer his phone next time. If it were any other day, that wouldn't hurt so much.

But it's Tuesday and he's spent the last thirteen days romancing her slowly, step by smooth, easy step, and now it seems that everything has meaning, everything has another layer to it.

Everything means too much, and it makes her ache.

He glances to the file on her desk. "New one?"

"This morning. You missed it."

Castle sets her coffee on her desk though and sits down beside her, his head swiveled towards the murder board. She's filled in only the barest of outlines because that's all they have. If she's lucky, she can solve these two new cases by Friday, the day of his Christmas party.

If she's lucky. But she's usually not. She's usually watching the blood spill out and stain the ground. Her mother's, Montgomery's, her own.

Going with him to see the Christmas lights on Sunday was so peaceful, alight with promise. And yesterday's absence did leave her wanting; it's why she called him. Somehow in the night, while she was asleep, her hope flared up like kindling. And now today is ashes.

It's not enough to know; she wants to have. To claim. But instead she hurts, and she hurts him, and she isn't-

Castle turns his head back to her and smiles. A bright and easy smile, all trace of betrayal or disappointment wiped clean from his face, gone from his eyes. Like it never happened. All is forgiven.

Her chest eases; she can do this. She can make it different.

Kate plucks her to-go cup from beside her keyboard, the one she bought for herself two hours ago, and rolls her chair back a little. She waits to be sure Castle is watching, then chucks the cup into the trash can beside the white board.

She reaches for the fresh one and wraps both hands around it, warming her fingers. She gives him a slow smile and takes her first sip, inhaling the heavy aroma of brewed coffee, milk, caffeine, and Castle's special form of good morning.

"Better late than never," she tells him.

* * *

><p>Since uniforms canvassing the neighborhood get an ID on Preacher (the John Doe from Sunday), and now they have a name for the dead man from today's crime scene as well, Beckett tells the guys to knock off, go home. She knows that Ryan has wedding stuff he needs to get done, but that if she didn't say anything, he'd stick it out with them until they're all too bleary to see straight.<p>

"I'm serious," she says to the three incredulous faces. "Go home. All of you."

"And you?" Castle says, as if he's suddenly gotten guts.

"Me too," she admits. Her fingers are back in her pocket again, the note rubbed smooth by too much handling. It's not a worry stone; she needs to leave it alone. She needs to go home.

Castle grabs her coat from the back of her chair and holds it up to help her slide it on, an unspoken challenge in the gesture.

Esposito and Ryan are watching her; Castle is staring her down. She can't admit to them that she never had any intention of staying - they expect her to want to be here, but she doesn't. She turns away and lets Castle pull her coat up. When she turns back around to face him, his hands brush the lapels of her peacoat, tug as if to draw her closer. She resists, her eyes flicking to the boys, and he lets go.

* * *

><p>She's been listening to his playlist for too long; it's making her regretful instead of hopeful. It's telling her that time is precious and she's wasting it, wasting all these moments.<p>

There's also the note he left in today's window. The note she's been rubbing her fingers over every thoughtless moment.

_Re-start an old Christmas tradition._

It shouldn't hurt. The day shouldn't hurt, but it does. The music is too accurate and too much; restarting an old Christmas tradition isn't as easy as he makes it sound. It involves memories she hasn't unearthed in a decade, and doing it alone holds only emptiness.

Alone. Is she alone? Her eyes slide to the calendar on her dining room table, the open windows, the closed ones. The promises inherent in those remaining days. Promises.

Then this too should be a promise, and not a prison sentence. A note, like the last one, that invites her to share. With him. Not alone.

She calls him before she has the time to stop herself, before malaise or cowardice kicks in. She's tired, and weary, and she wants to lay her head down and close her eyes and forget, but instead she's listening to the phone ring-

"You okay?" he says, by way of answering, concern lacing his tone.

"Show me yours and I'll show you mine," she says, her voice breathless with her own audacity, and a little thrilled by the choked noise he makes on the phone. But he recovers quickly, as he always does.

"Why, Katherine Beckett," he murmurs, and now there's not an ounce of concern, only heat. "Naughty of you-"

"Your old Christmas tradition, Castle," she interrupts, smiling widely for the first time all day.

She hears the soft laughter on his end. "You coming over? Or am I going over there?"

Kate stands up quickly, heads to her kitchen to take stock. Her pantry is bare. But Castle's family cooks often. So. "It looks like I'm coming over there."

She hangs up on him, that hard fluttering in her chest signaling the need for a hasty retreat. But she ignores it.

It's time to face the music.

* * *

><p>She brings the card with her, the card and his note, and when he opens the door to her, she lets herself smile. Castle steps back to let her in, taking her coat, and gestures to the couch. Alexis is here.<p>

Kate falters, but he's pushing her into the room with a hand at the small of her back. "You actually called right in the middle of one of our Christmas traditions," he says, leaning past her to pluck a small, red book from the coffee table.

Alexis is in pajamas, a pillow over her lap, comfortable. She gives Beckett a hesitant smile. "We read Dickens Christmas Carol every year. Or try to. Some years we're more successful than others."

"How long have you done that?" Kate asks, glancing over her shoulder at Castle.

"Long time. Started off watching that Disney Mickey Mouse cartoon when Alexis was little. You know where Uncle Scrooge is the duck, and Mickey is the poor clerk-"

"Yeah," Kate gives Alexis a hesitant look back. "I grew up watching that too."

Castle groans. "Damn, woman, you're making me feel old."

Kate grins, can't help it - it runs away with her. "I thought our foot chases after suspects made you feel old."

"That was a low blow, Beckett." He glares at her, hugging the book to his chest. "Because of that, I'm not reading to you."

Alexis laughs. "You're really missing out, Detective Beckett. He does all the voices."

"I bet he does." She arches an eyebrow at him, then turns to look at Alexis. "And, it's Kate. Alexis. Again. It's just Kate."

Alexis flushes and nods curtly, getting up from the couch, throwing the pillow back down. "I'll leave you guys. I've got. . .homework."

Suddenly, Kate doesn't want Alexis to go, doesn't want to kick the girl out of a Castle Christmas tradition all because Kate Beckett can't face her own solitude. She grabs the girl's elbow, stalls her.

"Actually, I need your help."

Kate feels Castle's eyes intently on her; she hasn't run this by him, hasn't even told him. But this. . .this is her Christmas tradition.

Alexis stays, eyes inquisitive but cautious. "What do you need my help for?"

Kate glances over to Castle, realizing she's asking for permission on a subject he knows nothing about. She reaches into the back pocket of her jeans and pulls out the card.

Her mother's recipe card.

"We used to make Christmas cookies every year. Together. Usually the first week of December. My mom rolled out the dough and I filled them. She hated that part because it was so sticky - almond filling gets all over your fingers - and I hated wielding the rolling pin and trying to make the dough flat enough to work."

Alexis's whole demeanor has transformed, her body language open and yielding. "You want me to help you make cookies?" Something startled in her eyes. Like a wild animal caught unawares.

"I can't do it alone," she says, and glances over to Castle. "Do you want to-"

"Yes," he blurts out, stepping in close like he's going to grab her. But he doesn't; he curls his hands into fists, and his eyes blaze with need.

She has to take a deep breath to get past it. "Thank you."

Alexis plucks the card out of Kate's hand and starts reading over the recipe. "Flour, butter, salt. Oh, we have sour cream - I just bought some. Strange. Sour cream in cookies?"

Kate swivels her head back to Alexis, smiling. "It's good. I promise. You won't even taste it."

"Almond filling though?" Alexis sighs, but then gives her father a slow, teasing look. "Da-ad, you'll go get us almond filling, won't you? Please?"

Kate glances at Castle and sucks in a breath, filled with the way his face changes when he stops looking at Alexis and turns, instead, to look at her. At Kate. Like that. Oh-

"Of course. Anything. Kate, tell me what it looks like. Where to find it."

Alexis is already heading for the kitchen with the recipe in her hand, searching for ingredients.

Kate tears her eyes away from Castle long enough to run her hand through her hair, debate the wisdom of doing this. What major line has she unthinkingly crossed? What does-

"Thank you, Kate," he says, and his voice is gruff with relief.

She meets his eyes with her startled ones, surprised by the altogether different need on his face. He's watching his daughter.

"No one has ever-" He shakes his head, stopping himself, and rubs his jaw. "Thank you for including her. I don't. . .I know this is special to you, because of your mom, and if you don't-"

"No. It's good. I've missed it. . .and didn't even realize why. You were right; I let too many of the good memories get buried by grief. Like snowdrifts piling up." Numbing. So that she can't feel anything anymore. . .

"Kate. You. . ." He sighs and his eyes are again at Alexis. "She didn't get in to Stanford; she just broke up with Ashley. She's not the same and I - this means - I can't-" Castle shrugs, supremely uncomfortable looking.

And then Kate gets it. What it means, what she's doing, drawing Alexis into her family tradition like this, wanting her when Alexis has lately been so unwanted.

"Oh," she murmurs, and her eyes are drawn to the girl. Really, just a girl. A young woman, sure, a college-bound woman, but still a girl.

She wonders, with a flash of cop-instinct, what it must have felt like as a little girl, adoring father but absent, flighty mother. What it must have been like, just two in their family.

She knows what it feels like now, a grown woman who had a loving mother for nineteen years of her life but who is now forced to be without, just her and her father attempting life without Johanna. Alexis is nearly at the same age Kate was when they lost-

But what has Alexis had all this time? No Christmas cookies to roll out, no ice skating in Rockefeller, no _I told you so_ in her ear, mocking and sighing and loving all at once.

Oh. No mother, but-

Alexis has had Richard Castle.

Just like Kate.


	15. December 14: Run Away & You'll Never

**December 14 - Run Away And You'll Never Know What Could Have Been**

* * *

><p>When Castle arrives at the precinct, the boys are headed out - each of them with cookies stuffed in their mouths and another in hand. They bro-nod at him and shuffle into the elevator as Castle gets off.<p>

He checks the break room first. She's left a metal tin (royal blue like those shortbread cookies come in) filled with the finished product from last night's late baking adventure. She and Alexis did pretty much all the work, rolling it out and cutting circles and all kinds of stuff. He remembers Kate kept having to add flour to the dough and it smeared over every surface she touched - her cheeks, her pants, his shirt.

He made two runs to the grocery store for almond filling. Castle got to eat the cookies that fell apart (_oh darn, it's broken_) and he was in charge of manning the oven. He pulled them out when the timer went off and checked with Kate to make sure they were done, then used the spatula to slide them onto cooling racks.

Kate has told him before that her mother was a good cook, that she learned from her during Sunday brunch. He knew that, but it never before fit Detective Beckett.

It fits now. He's seen Kate bake cookies with his daughter. It just. . .

He swallows hard and steps back out of the break room, reminding himself that he's got her coffee and she hates for that first sip to be anything other than near-scalding.

Beckett is on the phone when he gets to her desk, arguing with an airlines about a flight roster. It's apparently been faxed over, since she slaps the papers with her hand and growls into the phone, but she doesn't like it.

He holds her coffee, sits in his chair, waits.

"It's Flight 815 out of Newark. No." She pauses to blow the hair out of her eyes, then follows that with a hand scraping the errant strands back, holding it in place at the back of her head as she listens. "No. I'm telling you, this isn't the right manifest. Flight 815. Ha-ha, yes, I've seen the show. I'm not kidding you. Get me the correct passenger list."

Kate slams the phone back down and immediately levels him with the rest of her ire in the fast burn of her eyes. He holds up her coffee, places it on her desk as a peace offering, and says nothing.

Smart move. She begins to unwind slowly, like she'd been twisting tighter and tighter towards a breaking point but now uncoils bit by bit, easing her shoulders back down, sighing into her coffee, relaxing.

"Castle."

"Good morning?"

He gets a rare lift of her lips, an almost smile that lingers still in her eyes.

"Good morning," she says firmly, every finger wrapped around her coffee, and takes another long draught. He sees her wince at the burn but swallow it down, closing her eyes briefly. "Good stuff. You get enough sleep?"

She's mocking him, yeah, she is. That's fine. It's eight o'clock and he thinks that's a pretty decent hour to make his appearance. Better than yesterday, right? He thinks he disappointed her yesterday, somehow, even though he's never had set hours, never managed to make it to every body drop. Still, it seemed like she'd been counting on him yesterday. He hates that he's unintentionally let her down. "What time did you get here?"

She looks like she's not going to answer, as if to protect him from feeling guilty or maybe to avoid a discussion alluding to last night, but then she gives a shake of her head. "Six. Not too bad."

"Four hours of sleep, if that."

"Four. It's plenty."

"Plenty isn't the right word for it," he says, eyeing her as she takes another fast gulp of certainly hot coffee. Sucking down the caffeine fast this morning. "Is that your first?"

She startles, but gives him a little resigned laugh. "Yes. It is, actually. Which is why I wish you'd brought an IV so I could mainline it-"

"Kate," he chides. He'd like to tell her that it doesn't matter, she doesn't need to wait, but that's not true. It matters that she waits for his coffee, for him to fulfill that need. It says something to him that he's not entirely sure he'll ever figure out.

"Boys went to go pick up our guy."

"The warrant came through?"

She nods. "But we still've got nothing on the guy from Sunday."

Preacher. Whose name they've discovered finally. "Bishop," he says, twisting his lips. "Ironic, isn't it?"

She frowns, then her forehead clears and she laughs at him. "Chess pieces are not haunting you, Castle."

He grins back. "Not what I was referring to. We called him Preacher but really he's a Bishop."

Kate huffs at him, reaching up to run a hand through her hair. Again. She's nervous? Or something. He can't quite read her this morning.

"I didn't even. . .that didn't even come to mind," she says, and her eyes have turned back to the murder board. "What else am I not seeing?"

"Hey, we'll get there," he murmurs, concerned by the near-desperation he sees in her eyes.

"By Friday?" she says archly, but won't look at him.

Friday?

Oh. His Christmas party. She wants to solve these two murders because of *that*?

It doesn't explain the fervor in her eyes though, or the restless way she runs her hands through her hair. Kate is already standing up to get closer to the white board, her hands on her hips. Once again, it feels like this has a meaning to her that he doesn't get. Like not showing up for the early-morning murder scene, solving this case in time for his Christmas party is a sign from the universe.

Except she doesn't believe that stuff. So why is she acting like this?

Only thing he can do is show up. Stand at her side and hope it helps somehow. He doesn't get the urgency, but that doesn't mean he'll dismiss it.

So he gets out of his chair, stands at her right side, and puts his eyes on the board. Two murders to solve in two days. She can do it. They can do it.

* * *

><p>When lunch comes and goes, he doesn't even notice. He's pouring over financials for Preacher-Bishop and highlighting the odd socks. It's not really the 12th's term, but it's what he's used for Nikki Heat, and it's what makes sense to him when he's doing this kind of thing.<p>

Kate's the one to come get him. "Lunch, Castle."

"What?"

"You missed lunch. We both did. Come on."

Well, he's not saying no to that.

Castle abandons the financial statements in favor of following Beckett out of the conference room and back to her desk. She tosses him his coat and pulls hers on as well, tugging her hair out from under her collar. He's already shrugged his coat on when she reaches out and smooths her palm over his lapel, laying it down.

He stills, waits on her, but she doesn't meet his eyes, doesn't put any significance to the gesture, merely pivots on her heel and heads for the elevators.

"Coming, Castle?"

Oh. Yes.

* * *

><p>Alone together at a table in the back, cramped in a space surely meant for two pre-teen girls, Kate and Castle spend most of lunch in silence. She doesn't mind it; she likes it actually. Easier.<p>

But she can't keep taking the easy way out. So Kate pulls out the thing that's been weighing on her since she opened the window this morning and found it. The things. The set of them.

"What is this?" she says, laying the stack of gold coins on the table.

"There was a note-"

"I saw the note."

"So."

"So, what is this, Castle?"

"A stack of Liberty Double Eagles dating from the years, oh, roughly 1853 to 1902."

"I looked them up online," she says, gritting her teeth together. It takes an effort to relax her jaw and find her balance again. "Over $1500 just for one of these."

"You read the note."

_Come with us._

"Who is us?"

"Alexis and me." He shrugs at her, takes another bite of his hot roast beef and cheddar sandwich. She looks away.

But, damn, she's intrigued. She has no idea what the stack of ten -_ ten_ - golden dollar coins mean. Golden dollar coins worth one thousand six hundred and fifty-five dollars each.

"You have to give me more to go on than this, Castle," she says finally, not touching the money on the table. Money. He's given her ten of these.

"I want you to come with us. Tonight. We start at five-thirty."

"Castle," she sighs and the murder board pops into mind. The entirely too clean murder board. Esposito and Ryan's suspect is still flying high so no confession. They have to clear at least one of these cases tonight in order to make it Friday. Mistletoe and spiked egg nog. He promised. *She* promised. It's vital that she make it.

"Five-thirty. The two cases will be riper in the morning - easier picking. Come on. Beckett. You know you want to."

Of course she does, if only to find out what in the world he and Alexis have to do with nearly sixteen thousand dollars worth of gold coins.

"I won't make it out of the precinct by five-thirty," she says finally, regret lacing her voice, and Kate too tired to stop it.

"Yes you will. You and I will make it happen. Five-thirty."

"Just. Tell me. What is this about, Castle?"

"Making Christmas special. It's our tradition."

* * *

><p>Objectively, she can break down his methodology and admire his skill, his precision. Kate Beckett, as the master interrogator, as the detective who can get a murderer in a room and produce a confession in the fastest time on record in the 12th Precinct, Beckett can pinpoint each step and see the clever mastery behind it.<p>

As a woman, she is pleased by how well he knows her. (At first, she tries to ignore that. Then she realizes that these are the things she's not supposed to be ignoring anymore; these are the things to remember, to savor, as mementos of him, of how good he is for her.)

She can't resist the weird ones. The mysteries. Ten gold coins stacked in December 14th's window, with the note: _Come with us._

Him and Alexis. Tonight at five-thirty.

He mentioned something about breaking plans with Alexis the other night, and how he shouldn't do it again, *therefore* Kate has to come. Right. (But it does work.)

She has been called single-minded before, often. She was told (by her mother) that she's pig-headed. She's been labeled determined (a nice word for pig-headed).

So she's not distracted by the ten gold coins. Not at all. In fact, their presence in the pocket of her coat is what maintains her narrow focus, her laser-like approach to their two unsolved cases. Those coins and the five-thirty deadline are the impetus she needs to clear her brain of its remaining fog and do her job.

If she's going to solve the mystery of the gold coins, she's got to first solve one of these on her murder board.

By three-fifty Ryan is coaxing a confession from their suspect as Beckett watches on the other side of the glass, Castle at her side. Esposito spent the hour after the partners' better-late-than-never lunch running security footage from a bodega across the street. It was Beckett who discovered the bodega's existing video surveillance - it was Ryan who broke the man's alibi.

So when five-fifteen hits, she is just wrapping up the last of the casework, filing it on the intranet and submitting it to the Captain for review in the morning. She feels her phone vibrate when she pulls on her coat, takes it out to read his text.

_We can pick you up._

She texts back an affirmation - Castle left right after four to change and gather supplies (his word) - but all it really means is that he again got out of paperwork. She wishes she had time to change, but since she doesn't have any idea what they plan on doing tonight, maybe dress pants and a cashmere sweater are just fine.

When Kate gets to the lobby and out past security, she finds Alexis and Castle loitering outside. "How long have you been here?"

"Fifteen minutes," Alexis says. Castle gives her a look but closes his mouth. Apparently Castle was going to lie and say _not long._

"Well, let's go then. Wherever it is we're going."

Alexis hooks her arm through Kate's; Beckett has to squeeze her arm against her side (Alexis's hand trapped there) to stifle the instinctive aversion she has to being this close to someone. Especially on that side.

But Alexis is glancing past Kate entirely, looking at her father. "You didn't tell her," Alexis says, sounding surprised.

"It's you and me, Alexis. It's up to you."

Kate glances to Alexis in surprise. "This is. . .your thing?" she asks.

"It's our thing," the girl answers with a shrug. Castle opens the door of the car, gestures for the two to climb in ahead of him.

Alexis isn't smiling, and Kate has to wonder if Castle had to persuade her, or if it was-

"But inviting you was my idea."

"Your idea," Kate repeats, glancing to Castle to see if this is the truth. He gets in after them and shuts the door. He's using the car service for this, apparently. Whatever this is.

"I told Alexis about the Advent calendar," he says, giving his daughter a grin. He stretches out in the back seat next to Kate, his thigh touches her knee, one of his hands drops between them. She can feel the heat of him through her coat, invading the small space of the town car.

"Dad needed some help," Alexis grins back. "He got stuck and asked me what I thought was the best part of Christmas. And this - this part - is my favorite."

"This part?" Kate asks, glancing back to Castle again. But he's nodding his head towards Alexis. Beckett glances back to his daughter, feeling entirely out of the loop and now not at all certain she wants to know.

Alexis takes a breath. "You still have the coins?"

Kate reaches into her coat pocket and pulls them out, still stacked up and tied with ribbon, just as they were when she found them this morning.

Alexis gives a little grin. "I wrapped them."

Kate huffs a laugh and shares the smile with the girl. "Good job. They've stayed stacked together all day. So. What is this about, Alexis?"

"It's part of the plan for tonight. Every year, Dad and I come up with a way to make someone's Christmas special. Anonymously. We want to somehow pass it on. Pay it forward."

Kate raises an eyebrow and casts a swift look back over to her partner. Castle nods.

"O-okay," Kate murmurs, at a loss.

"So, if you do this with us tonight, you can't say anything. It's. . .our secret. Yours now too."

Kate blinks, glances once more to Castle. "I won't say anything." Alexis nods, and Kate bites her lip. "So what does this mean? Making Christmas special. You give money to charities or work at a homeless shelter or something?"

"Not exactly. It's. . .I'd rather not say," Alexis says softly, but her eyes are asking for acceptance. "Telling you what we've done is. . .feels wrong. It's not about Christmas then, it becomes about me. Like I'm saying, look at me."

So they're not going to tell her what they've done in the past then.

Alexis leans forward to catch her father's eyes, as if seeking permission, then gives Kate a long look. "But I can tell you this - this year we're giving those away."

The gold coins in her coat pocket. "How?" she asks. "To who?"

The girls bites her lip and shakes her head, a sly smile spreading on her face. "You'll see."

Kate sighs, but her interest in piqued, and she'd do anything Alexis asked of her. She glances over to her partner, judging the look on his face. "Every year you do this?"

Castle nods at her, something on his face, in his eyes, that she doesn't see often. Absolutely serious, intent on her, asking her for something she doesn't even know if she has. The same look on his face he had in a cemetery this spring, the same look as when they thought they would freeze to death-

She's not sure what that means, or what it has to do with this tonight.

"Okay. So I'm helping you do this, or what?" Kate says, trying to smile at him, reassure him of something she can't even be certain of.

"The idea is to make Christmas special for someone else." Alexis picks at her corduroy pants and then glances up at Kate, her blue eyes bright. "I told Dad that maybe if we invited you along with us, you would see. . .the Christmas spirit. So we'd be making your Christmas special too." Her cheeks are pink as she speaks.

Kate glances down at the gold coins in her hand. Alexis wants to make her Christmas special? Alexis had this idea - for a gift for Kate - way back before December even started.

"So these coins-?" she asks quietly.

Alexis nods. "Dad got them a couple months ago. We've had to plan ahead for most of these, so we usually know what we're doing by Halloween."

Every year. Every year they've done this. Kate glances over at Castle again, completely at a loss.

Every year they try to make someone's Christmas special. And this year, they're making it hers.

* * *

><p>Alexis goes first to show her how it's done; she takes one of the gold coins from Kate's hand asking "Do you mind?" As if Kate would keep it from the girl. They've still not told her anything.<p>

The car service stops at Lexington and all three get out. The intersection is thick with holiday shoppers, even on a Wednesday, and stores are lighted with season's greetings. The air has warmed some, and Kate doesn't even button her coat. She's not sure where they're going, only that Alexis is walking slightly ahead of them, and Castle's hand brushes Kate's from time to time. She feels the warmth of his skin all the way to her toes.

There's a Santa ringing a bell on Lexington's corner (rather underwhelming in his enthusiasm), but the crowd drops change in the red kettle from time to time. Alexis has her hand in her pocket as the three of them walk; she looks almost jittery.

Kate feels nervous just *for* Alexis. Castle suddenly closes the infinitesimal distance between himself and Kate, catches her fingers with his own. It's not true hand holding; it's just the linking of their fingers. But her cheeks flush and she squeezes back, nearly forgetting the mystery she's in the middle of.

When they start to pass the bell ringer, Alexis steps over to the tripod, meets the Salvation Army volunteer's eyes, and pulls her hand out of her pocket, hovering over the red kettle. Kate hears the coin drop in. It makes a heavy sound, but people keep walking, the Santa gives Alexis a nod and says thank you, keeps ringing his bell.

Kate's heart is pounding.

Alexis just dropped over fifteen hundred dollars in that red kettle.

The girl comes back to Castle's side and her face is beaming, flush with pleasure, her eyes so very blue and looking exactly like her father's. Kate finds herself staring at the two of them, knocked breathless by the gesture. Anonymous. Every year.

Her palm meets his, their fingers still laced together, and she finds that her feet are still walking, following alongside the Castles, but her guts are somewhere back there, back with that Salvation Army bell ringer.

Every year, Castle wants to make Christmas special.

And despite everything that's happened, Alexis is the one who wants to share this with her.

* * *

><p>The car lets them out a few blocks down, and they walk to Grand Central Terminal at Park and 42nd - the railroad terminal, not the subway station - with its huge Main Concourse and gorgeous archways. Castle still has her by the hand; he doesn't want to let go. It's her turn this time; Castle went second and gave coins to the two bell ringers in Rockefeller Plaza.<p>

He watches Kate study the layout as a crowd gathers around the bell ringer outside Grand Central. This guy always has this spot, and every year he breakdances while he rings his bell, fairly intricate and always interesting. He probably has the highest donations of any bell ringer in the city.

Castle squeezes her hand and she glances back at him. She gives him a short nod and then releases his hand, heads for the red kettle hanging on its stand. People are constantly dropping money in as they watch the guy in his red Salvation Army apron do his thing on the sidewalk.

But Castle is watching her. She strides right up to the tripod, her hand coming out of her coat pocket; she bends slightly at the waist as she leans over the kettle, the gold catches the street lamp before it disappears through the slot.

When Kate turns back around, her entire face is suffused with joy. She looks exactly like Alexis did the first time they started this tradition - proud and thrilled and a little overwhelmed by the giving. Alexis was five, and they'd pulled a name from the Angel Tree. Alexis had been the one to carry the bag of gifts, the kid's new coat, back to the local coordinator, so filled up with giving, bouncing on her toes as they left.

Kate lets out a soft breath as she comes back to them; her hand slips naturally into his, clutching tightly. Alexis is laughing.

"It's great, huh?" Alexis says.

Kate nods. "It's not even my money-"

"Sure it is," Castle interrupts. "I gave it to you. It's yours."

Kate gives him a look, shaking her head. "Still. It's an amazing secret. I just-" She shrugs, but a smile spreads across her face.

"Yeah," Alexis grins back. His daughter brushes a strand of hair back and glances down the street, then back to him. "Dad. You ready?"

"Lead on, kiddo."

Alexis glances down at his and Kate's joined hands, then extends her hand to Kate as well, reaching for the one Castle doesn't already have a grip on. "Ready, Kate? We've got six more."

For some reason, Kate looks back at him before accepting his daughter's hand.

"Six more," she murmurs, and her eyes cut back to him.

Bewildered, pleased. That same look of calculation that comes over her face when she gets new information up on her murder board.

She didn't expect this of him, did she? Well, including her in on their Christmas giving tradition was Alexis's idea. He was actually pretty uncomfortable about telling Kate (it doesn't fit with the image of himself he usually projects, the man-child with far less expectations placed on him, the one who can get away with immaturity and selfishness. Revealing this kind of thing only means he has a longer fall - because it's inevitable that he'll disappoint.) Castle even left it all up to his daughter, the explanations and the decision to include Kate. But Alexis insisted; she said that maybe this year they're also making Christmas special for Kate.

And she was right. They are. He can see it.

"Your turn to pick the next spot," he says, enraptured by the way this joy transforms her whole face. The last time he saw this look, she was cutting his hands free in a bank vault, her eyes brimming with everything not said.

"There's a bell ringer down by my apartment," Kate murmurs, chewing on her lower lip. "He doesn't get a lot of foot traffic. Can we visit him next?"

Castle grins, pressing her cold hand to his thigh. "Of course."

Anything. Anywhere.

Alexis is so getting extra Christmas gifts for this brilliant, wonderful idea.


	16. December 15: To Be Alone With You

**December 15 - To Be Alone With You**

* * *

><p>Chapstick.<p>

Well, to be fair. It's tinted lip balm, so it's got a hint of color. Burt's Bees, so it makes her think of honey, and yes - damn him - she already put it on, the moment she opened the window and pulled it out.

And then she remembers that tomorrow is his Christmas party and the promised mistletoe.

Oh no, no, no. Did he-?

No. It's just a little gift, something small to balance out the crazy, overwhelming gold coins he gave her yesterday. (He gave to her to give away. Which was - _oh_ - amazing.)

Kate presses her lips together, unable to even stop the flutter in her chest or the way the scent of the lip balm makes her think about his mouth (and why? why would it? but it does). She sits at her computer in front of itunes, checking the box so it will upload the song for today, her phone nestled in the cradle of the dock, waiting.

Waiting.

Each morning brings that easy anticipation, that rush of peculiar pleasure, and she can barely remember the woman who balked at Castle's Advent calendar on her dining room table back at the end of November. This is a new month, and she is. . .more than her fear.

She's not sure what more, but she knows that it's there - longing, yearning for the thing he holds out for her.

* * *

><p>Breathlessly, Beckett pushes Castle back against the wall, her eyes on his, everything unspoken.<p>

He nods once, stays there, and she checks the hallway again.

Their suspect slides against the wall, light on his feet, clearly having spotted the team outside from his apartment window and now trying to escape. Beckett can't help but feel the weight of the vest across her shoulders, squeezing her chest, versus the warmth of Castle at her back, steady, counting on her. He stays while she steps out.

"NYPD. Freeze."

The man arrests in mid-motion; she can read the indecision on his face, the hesitance to comply. His fingers twitch and she sees a bulge of weapon at his back, his waistband.

"Give me a reason." Her voice is clipped, in control, and the man halts. "Hands on your head."

He surrenders, lifting his hands on top of his head, apparently well-versed with this. At that moment, Esposito appears at the other end of the hall, gun drawn, and backs her up. Beckett makes sure that Espo's got him, then starts forward, gun lowered cautiously, pulling the handcuffs out of her coat pocket.

She pulls the gun from the man's waistband, steps back to secure it in her own holster, then nods to Esposito again.

"You're under arrest for the murder of Michael Bishop," she says, and snags the man's wrists with the metal bracelets. His whole body slumps with defeat, and Beckett feels the answering lightness in her chest, an easiness that makes the bulletproof vest no longer a burden.

Castle is at her side in moments, following her as she leads their suspect down the hall to the waiting squad car.

"And it's only Thursday," he murmurs, and she hears the smile in his voice.

* * *

><p>Her stomach churns, but he seems quite calm beside her. She's filling out the last of the paperwork, and it's only three, and there's nothing - <em>nothing<em> - left to do.

"It's a Christmas miracle," Castle murmurs, sliding his phone back into his inside pocket, his eyes warm on hers.

"Must be. Or Festivus."

His lips twitch. "Or try this one - Chrismukkah."

She bites her bottom lip, tastes lip balm, controls her blush only through years of practice. "Darn. I know what that's from."

"You do not," he says, mock-horror dripping from his voice.

"The O.C.," she sighs, rolling her eyes at herself.

"I might have been wrong. My DVR might be right up your alley."

She smirks back at him, narrowing her eyes a little because he promised not to bring up her 'Temptation Lane' obsession ever again. "Just might," she agrees, shrugging a shoulder as she types in the last of her report.

"My DVR is kinda Christmas heavy right now," he says. "If that tempts you at all."

"Not especially," she retorts, sliding a glance his way as she types.

"Really?" he whines. "But there's Grinch. Both versions - cartoon and Carey. And 'It's A Wonderful Life.' I love that one."

"You would."

"You don't?" A gasp, his body leaning in closer to hers. She doesn't look. Can't look. Longing flares in her chest. "Detective Beckett, that's a crying shame."

"I didn't say that I didn't like it; I said it figures that you would."

"You do like it?"

"Perhaps."

"All right. So here's the deal. I've got to decorate the loft for the Christmas party and Alexis is studying her heart out for her last final, so. . ."

"So?" Kate murmurs, but she knows what he's looking for.

"I hate to have to do this. But I'm gonna refer back to a few days ago when I helped you decorate. Now you can return the favor."

"No thanks."

He splutters, as if he didn't see that coming. "What? But you owe me."

She enters information into the last field, saves her work, sends it on to the Captain. And then looks at him. His spluttering was all for show. Good. He knows; he knows that there's no way she's saying no to him. Not now.

Not anymore.

"I owe you?" She doesn't have to make it easy. Where's the fun in that?

"You do. So come on. I know you're done with paperwork. I've been watching. Get your coat."

Her stomach flips. She is *not* turned on by this. She's not. She's just acknowledging a debt.

"Get my coat?"

"Come *on*, Beckett. I'll play whatever Christmas movie you want. Or you can peruse my DVR to your heart's content. Just help me." He's so whiny, but it's that adorable whine, the one with those pleading eyes and tempting mouth.

She sucks in a breath, glances away from that sight. She means to keep teasing him, means to keep denying him. But instead something else entirely comes out of her mouth.

"All right. Let me check in with Gates. Then we'll go home."

His whole face chokes with light, and his hand reaches for her elbow, squeezing, as if he can't help himself. She takes a quick look around the bullpen, then slides her forearm out of his palm to instead clasp his hand.

He stares at her for half a heartbeat (she can feel hers pound in her wrist, trapped by his fingers), and then Castle swallows. "Yeah. Okay. Home."

Okay what? She's lost track of the conversation.

Wait. Home? She said home. She said they would go home.

"Go tell Gates. I'll wait by the elevator." Castle stands up and moves away, his eyes still on her, rooting her to the spot.

She blinks, glances down at her computer, then up. Ryan is watching her, but she can't even be embarrassed. Nothing but. . .stunned. That quickly, laid low by just the look in his eyes over a simple slip of the tongue. A simple mistake that - that -

Made him so happy.

Home.

* * *

><p>Castle goes on ahead of her because Gates keeps Kate back for a few more things, mainly to have a serious conversation about taking up slack in the department when Ryan goes on his honeymoon next month. It's all Kate can do to sit there and nod, to not fidget, because she's so antsy to get going already. To follow him home.<p>

Esposito delays her as well, noting a few inconsistencies in the report and the confession, and her heart drops, but Ryan steps between them and takes over, and Kate has never, _never_, been so very grateful to someone as she is at that moment.

God bless Ryan.

She shifts from foot to foot in the elevator, her hands in fists at her side, and then she realizes she didn't take the Harley in this morning because it's been so bitterly cold. Only she could have; the air is warmer and now she can't drive the Crown Vic or else she has to report her whereabouts, log it out; she should have-

She should calm down. Walk. She'll take the subway and walk the last few blocks to his place. It's only a little after four in the afternoon and from the lobby's windows, she can see the sun beginning to sink past the skyline. The walk will soothe her; the damp in the air and the faint threat of coolness as pink and gold spread along the western edge of the world.

Walk, Kate. Don't run.

* * *

><p>She brushes the mist from her hair, shakes it out in his elevator, scratching at her scalp. She texted him to say she was on her way up; he said Alexis would probably be the one to hear the door.<p>

Sure enough, Alexis answers, pulling her immediately into a hug, still in the threshold. She's got her backpack on her shoulders, which makes it awkward, and Kate's side pulls uncomfortably, but she tries to give the embrace back. That lotion Castle gave her is actually working; she's been less stiff, able to take the sudden onslaught of Alexis hugs.

"Okay, I'm headed over to Lauren's to study. But I confiscated this. Dad doesn't know." Alexis slides her backpack off one shoulder and swings it around, unzipping the main compartment. She pulls out a leafy sprig tied with red ribbon, pushes it towards Kate. "I figured you should. . .be in charge of this. There's a time and place. You know?"

Kate stares down at the mistletoe that Alexis has stolen for her, blinks back the rush of gratitude and surprise and even. . .disappointment.

"Thanks." She clears her throat, tries again. "Thank you."

Alexis gives her another impulsive hug around the shoulders, then pushes past her into the hallway, waving as she goes. "Have fun."

"Uh."

"Better you than me."

And Kate is left standing in his loft with the mistletoe, Castle nowhere to be found, the Grinch cartoon blaring loudly on the television, and all the decisions left up to her.

* * *

><p>Castle finds her in the living room. He's piled boxes up that he's pulled from the guest bedroom's storage closet, and he heads down the stairs towards her, hoping he doesn't trip. How unmanly would that be?<p>

He makes it without incident and sets everything down on the coffee table. She's inspecting the huge live tree that's up in front of the broad expanse of windows; her nose close to a branch, her chest rising as she inhales. Just like a vision. His mouth goes dry and he wants to touch her cheek, brush the hair away from her face, see her eyes.

"Kate."

She turns slowly; she heard him of course. There's a look on her face he doesn't recognize, but that's good. That can only be good. These unrecognizable faces, these new ones, they've been the best ones so far.

"These all for the tree?" she murmurs, and her hand reaches out for an already opened box that's in the floor by her feet. He watches her kneel next to it, pulling out garland and bows and holly, and he feels that rush of relief that accompanies their exchanges so often lately.

She's here. She's here in his home. She's staying.

He comes to her side and gets down on the floor with her. She really will get to see all of their crazy decorations, the ornaments handmade by his daughter, the talking Santa, the reindeer set, the nativity scene his mother stole from a production one year.

When he started this, when he dreamed up the Advent calendar, maybe in his wildest fantasies he thought she'd be here now. Maybe.

But this. . .the soft light on her hair, the scent of lip balm and cherries, the gentle tug of her eyes on his gut, this is better than he imagined. So much better.

And he can't help but recognize something else that's been haunting his dreams of her lately, something he kept so dark, so buried, that it surprises him even now.

He wants more than just having her at his loft. He wants to unwrap Christmas ornaments with her that are mementos of them, that give testimony to the little hands that made them, the family that they created. The home. Wherever that is, however it looks.

He doesn't just want her; he wants to give to her.

Everything.

* * *

><p>She's laughing. Shoving his hands away, a knee up as if to block him. Still he manages to throw silver tinsel all over her, showering it down, and she huffs at him as it catches in her hair.<p>

"Ha! Got you," he crows, his hands scratched by pine needles from their tussle in front of the tree.

"You punk," she says, doing her best to look withering, but failing. Oh failing. She looks radiant, even with silver tinsel dripping from her curls, laying over her sweater. Radiant and halfway smiling at him as they stand side by side in front of his Christmas tree.

Castle reaches out and plucks a strand from in front of her eyes, tosses it onto the tree instead, grinning at her.

"You're worse than a kid," she mutters, and shakes her hair out so that tinsel cascades to the floor.

He's kinda stunned immobile by that hair toss, by the glitter of silver raining down.

"Okay, Castle, come on - we haven't even decorated half your tree." She's got that tone of voice that indicates an eye roll, but she's not rolling her eyes. She's back to the closed-mouth smile that stretches her face, leaves those lines in her skin that he wants to put his lips to, taste their depth. She didn't have laugh lines when he met her; of course, maybe that's because he didn't often see her laugh.

"No more tinsel for you," she says, nudging him with her knee. She grabs the package from the box behind them on the chair, starts spreading it over the rest of the tree.

Castle grabs a tray of glass ornaments to distract himself, to keep from grabbing her instead, and starts hanging them haphazardly on the tree. After awhile, he realizes that Kate is rearranging them, shifting one or two here or there, eyeing the thing like it's her own tree, like she wants it just right.

He doesn't say a word. He might. Later - somewhere down the road when maybe this is the third or fourth tree they've put up together and she's in his home for good, to stay for always, but right now he'll just be thrilled that she wants to fix his decorating mistakes, that she goes behind him and cleans up.

He bites the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning, turns back to the coffee table for another set of ornaments. He opens a flat shirt box and pulls out the creations that Alexis has made in school over the years - construction paper Christmas trees, popsicle stick stars, pipe cleaner reindeer.

"Oh, look at this one," he says and pivots, holding up the thing by its mangled ribbon. A large blue snowflake with silver glitter, her name scrawled in marker on the back, and the year.

Kate's eyes soften, but not when she looks at the snowflake. When she looks at him. He can see it, the way she opens to him, the dark eyeliner only framing the brown beauty of her eyes.

"What grade was that?" she asks, reaching out to finger the sparkles.

"Uh, third. Third grade with Mrs. Ellis. Actually, Mrs. Ellis was only there for the first semester, and then she had a baby, and Alexis was stuck with this awful teacher. Mrs. Morris. Ug."

Kate's lips twitch and he hands her the ornament so that he can dig back through the collection, pull out a cottonball snowman. Kate hesitates for a moment (why? she was doing such a lovely job repositioning his just a moment ago), but he holds up the snowman and grins at her again.

She turns to the six foot tree and hangs the snowflake near the top, rearranging the tinsel so that it's not in the way. When she faces him again, Castle twirls the snowman around, the mouth drooping from where the little pieces of black construction paper have sunk.

Kate laughs and takes it from him as well, hangs it up quickly. She turns back and reaches for another before he can pull anything out. It's the one from kindergarten: Alexis's little handprints arranged in a circle to make a wreath.

"That goes on the door, usually," he says. Too big for the tree. Alexis has taken it down the last few years though, looking at him like he's crazy, and put up the fancy, expensive wreath that his mother or Gina or someone bought.

Kate bites her lip; her eyes are on the little green handprints, something flickering on her face. He wonders at it, can't help notice the way her fingers explore the fluttering green branches made by his daughter's five year old handprints. Reverence and. . .what? A kind of hope, he thinks.

"Kate?"

"I want to-" She shakes her head. "It's. . .cute. I think I made one too. In kindergarten or preschool. Something."

"Your dad still have it, maybe?"

She shrugs, seems to be avoiding that subject.

"See the yarn? It will go right over the peephole on the door. If you will." He gestures towards his front door and she's already heading that way with his daughter's handprint wreath cradled against her chest.

He knows she wasn't thinking about the wreath she made herself, or even about the decorations in her childhood home during Christmas. Castle saw the way her face changed when she came up with that answer - a neatly done sidestep. She was thinking of something else entirely. Little hands, little handprints. He knows that look, but he never thought he'd see it in Kate Beckett.

Where is that damn mistletoe? He still hasn't been able to find it.

* * *

><p>She's at the top of the stairs while he's below, handing her up the garland to wrap around the rail. She snakes it through and tosses it back down to him so he can wind it around the bottom bar. Over and over as they go down the stairs, soft music on his stereo keeping them company. The Grinch ended ages ago and he offered to let her scroll through his DVR, but she plucked his ipod off the dock and put her phone in, started his playlist for her.<p>

He doesn't mind one bit. It means she's been listening to the songs each day and that she likes them. She's only loaded the songs up until today, which is. . .kinda sweet actually. She's following the rules so closely that she hasn't even given herself the chance to accidentally break them.

And of course, there's always the immature and squealing side of him that's so happy she likes his gift. She really likes it.

They get to the bottom of the stairs, finishing the garland, and he holds out his hand; she takes it and steps down next to him with a smile. "Okay, Castle. Garland is done. What now?"

"The lights."

"We already put them up," she mentions, glancing to the tree.

"The tree lights, yeah. But the inside lights-"

"You've got to be kidding me."

She's already helped him place the little decorative stuff around the apartment - the wooden Santas, the stockings hanging over his built-in fireplace (attached craftily from the ceiling with fishing line since he doesn't have a mantel), the red glass bowl of pinecones on his dining room table, the red swags across the windows. She found clusters of holly and attached them to the backs of the dining chairs; it never occurred to him to use the holly like that (and where is that mistletoe?).

"Gotta have the inside lights. They twinkle. They're white."

"Of course they are," she mutters, but she's already leading him back towards the last of the boxes. Leading him by the hand.

She releases him to open the last box, digging out the neatly wound strands of lights with two hands. "Oh, good. They're not all tangled up."

He laughs, guessing that might have been the reason for her sighing reluctance. "I learned that lesson early on. I'm the one who takes the lights down and arranges everything just so. Otherwise, it'll be a hopeless mess."

She grins at him, gives him a bundle to start unwrapping. "So where are we putting these?"

"Along the windows. I've got brackets to mount them on so that they stay straight."

"Really?" she asks, peering back down into the box and then pulling out the flat wooden braces with their clear plastic brackets in fixed intervals. "How. . .orderly of you, Castle."

"Not at all like me, is it?"

"Not much," she admits with a grin.

"Like I said, I've learned my lesson."

Kate shrugs and begins unwinding the lights, but he peers back into the box, digging through the strands. Still no mistletoe. Damn. Where could it have gone-?

"What're you looking for?" she asks.

"Oh, noth-" He turns his head to look at her and stops, words fleeing him. She's got that look on her face that he knows - he's seen before.

She knows exactly what he's been looking for. And she's been laughing at him this whole time, knowing.

"Why you little-"

"Not-uh, Castle. Better be nice to me or you'll never find it."

He narrows his eyes at her. "I'll find it."

"In time?"

Damn, probably not. This woman. . .she's going to drive him crazy, isn't she? Three years from now, four, she's still going to be doing this to him, teasing him mercilessly, laughing, gorgeous and alluring.

How badly he wants that.

Kate must see it flare up in his eyes, because she takes a careful step away from him, the strand of twinkling white lights in her hands. "Let's see if these work."

Castle glances down at the box filled with Christmas lights, takes a moment to control himself again. They've had fun tonight; she's held his hand and teased him and smiled and touched. He won't ask for more than that.

He'll take what she's offering. He'll be patient.

He can wait.

Because tonight she came home with him.

* * *

><p>Kate opens her apartment door with a sigh, glad to finally arrive after the dodgy subway ride and the long walk. If their luck holds, tomorrow will be a slow day and she and the boys will make it to Castle's Christmas party on time.<p>

When Alexis handed her that mistletoe, her snap decision had been to dump it in the trash chute. But that was knee-jerk, and she knew it, and so she walked into his loft and took a moment to calm down.

She hung the mistletoe herself. In his study, away from the party, with the idea that - the idea that - that she doesn't want anyone else seeing their first kiss. (First? No. But. . .first one that matters, that means something intentional.)

Kate's chest fills, cracks, feels like it's breaking open. She locks the door behind her, drops her keys on the kitchen counter, puts her hand to the cool porcelain to steady herself. Breathe through it. She isn't splitting out of her skin; she isn't molting. This is just. . .a natural progression.

More. She is evolving into more. More than the closed-up, jagged-edged woman with a hole in her heart the size of a mother. More than her fear.

And tonight she got a glimpse of what that more looks like, what shape it will take when she sheds the cocoon and emerges, fully formed.

Handprints on a wreath.

Kate presses her cheek against the door of the refrigerator, closes her eyes for a moment (still she sees that child-made wreath). She jerks her eyes open and pulls a glass down from the cabinet, gets out ice, fills it with water. She takes long gulps to clear her head.

She hung the mistletoe herself.

He still hadn't found it when she'd left this evening. He was whining, he was growling at her; he demanded to know, he begged. She didn't want to tell. Couldn't tell. It was for tomorrow, at his party, not tonight.

It was for later. Not much later, but still not quite now, not quite yet.

She's working on it.

Kate puts the glass in the kitchen sink and heads for her bedroom, worn out from the effort of holding herself back all night.

She startles when her phone buzzes in her back pocket; she pulls it out and finds a text from Castle:

_I found the thing I was missing._

A slow smile spreads across her face, imagining him in his study, finally sitting down in that comfy-looking leather chair with his laptop, tilting his head back when he gets to a scene he doesn't quite know how to finish. Seeing the mistletoe there.

She texts him back.

_So have I._


	17. December 16: You Belong Inside My Arms

**December 16 - You Belong Inside My Arms**

* * *

><p>It's early yet, but Castle honestly expects something to ruin today. A body to drop with a wake-up call from Detective Beckett. He didn't set an alarm, but he's up, restless with it. Waiting on the day to be ruined.<p>

Gates has threatened him with expulsion if shows up at the 12th without a murder. If there's no call, then he has no cause to see her today. But if there's no call, then she'll make it to his loft tonight.

Castle slumps a little further down in his chair, his feet propped up on his desk so that his laptop rests on his thighs, the battery getting hot but without much keyboard action. The page is half-filled with placeholder text; he's been jumping around to write this one, scenes coming to mind from much later in the book.

He tilts his head back (how can he not? it's all he can think about), and he watches the mistletoe sway slightly in the blast of heat from the vents. She must have pushed his chair over and stood on it to hang it there, dangling from its loop of ribbon on the top of the bookcase, held in place by a glass paperweight that used to be on his desk.

It's secluded; it's away from the door so that even if someone did barge in on them-

Yeah, it's all he can think about. Kissing Kate Beckett again. The aggression latent in her lips, the strength of her passion when she rises to meet him. He has that first (and second) kiss memorized - the way her skull felt cradled in his hands, the warmth of her skin, how she went after it the moment she figured out what he was doing, the hot push of her tongue into his mouth.

He wants that again. Fiercely.

It. . .feels inevitable. Which is a relief. She took his mistletoe and hung it up herself and this is going to happen. He can envision it.

He didn't expect it to happen like this, so quickly. He expected to make her uncomfortable at first, expected to have to fight her to accept it, expected to spend this month force-feeding her Christmas cheer.

Only it's been so much more than that. It's been. . .shared. They've shared the days, the traditions, the delight, the awe, the cases, the burdens. Partners. And while he knows she's still struggling to let it happen, he sees that it actually *will* happen.

It's not just a hope anymore. It's a certainty.

* * *

><p>Castle isn't even nervous. People ring his doorbell, people file in with smiles, people mill around the living room. People who are not Kate. He's not nervous; she's coming. She will be here.<p>

His mother invited a lot of her Broadway cronies, a few are current players on the stage, so there's plenty of laughter and frivolity and entertainment. He knows his mother is about three drinks away from wrangling someone to play the piano so she can sing along, but he's keeping the punch bowl of egg nog filled. For later.

Alexis invited friends as well, which makes for an interesting mix. He's given her strict instructions on the egg nog, of course, and there's a separate table of non-alcoholic drinks so he can keep an eye on those under-age. Mostly, Alexis's friends are good-natured about it, and he knows them well enough to feel comfortable not being overbearing about it.

His Christmas parties are usually family and friends, while his New Year's Eve parties are business and social events to reestablish connections and charm the important people. So while the mayor and the police chief are part of his social circle, they aren't invited to his home tonight. (Neither is Gates.)

He's been up since six this morning, wide awake like today is actually Christmas instead of just halfway through December. No one from the 12th has shown up yet, but he never got a call about a murder, so he's not worried.

She will be here.

Everyone knows who he's waiting for. The party is enjoyable, people are talking and having fun and eating, but it hasn't really started yet. He feels like they are all holding a collective breath, waiting for Kate to arrive.

It can't be true, of course. But his eyes go the door (which is unlocked, allowing people to filter in on their own), his feet propel him towards the door, his whole being is attuned to the opening click of that door.

It's catered, like it always is, but Castle and Alexis are the ones refilling the trays and drinks, making the rounds, so it's by pure chance that Castle is right at the entryway when the front door opens and Ryan and Esposito come inside, knocking shoulders as they jostle each other.

The women are right behind them. Jenny in a delicate pink something that gives Castle the impression of candy-land and sweets, cute in its own way, exactly right for Ryan. Lanie next, sensual and warm as always, a hand hovering interestingly close to Esposito's, dressed in an alluring velvet that while he does actually see and appreciate on some level, he can't quite hold on to.

Because Kate Beckett is right behind her, shedding her coat.

His body seizes up.

Her dress is that deep, midnight blue that makes her skin ivory and pearl, her round shoulders invitingly, softly strong under the flared straps of a sweetheart neckline. Her body is wrapped in that dress; the stretchy cotton looks like it was made for her.

Esposito does the gentlemanly thing and takes everyone's coats, giving Castle a disgusted look as he heads back to pile them on the coach in the study, Lanie drifting after him. Kate's eyes flick to the study and then back to Castle's, a question in them he doesn't know how to answer.

It's taking everything in him not to plant his hands on her wicked, curve-hugging hips and pull her body to his. Everything in him. He makes fists at his thighs, and she smiles, lifting an eyebrow.

Ryan and Jenny have melted into the crowd, and Lanie and Esposito haven't reappeared from the study yet. Castle realizes he hasn't said a word to Kate yet and tries to unglue his tongue.

"You. . ." He hasn't breathed in awhile, has he? He sucks in a breath and finds it laden with her rich scent - a perfume he's caught faint impressions of on her wrist once, a sense of the spiced-cherry blossom that arises from her skin, and a new one, a kind of musk that-

He swallows, burned with the knowledge.

The musk of her body, alive and breathing and here in his home again, wrapped like an early Christmas present.

"Castle."

He breathes out. "You're so gorgeous. . .you're killing me."

She puffs out her breath on a laugh, her lips quirking at the edges, and steps in closer to him. Her hand reaches up to his neck, her thumb swiping along the skin, and then she drags her palm over his trapezius, following the line of his shoulder to his arm. Smoothing his jacket, squeezing his bicep in greeting. "You're rather appealing yourself."

It doesn't sound natural coming out of her mouth, but it does sound honest, the truth dragged from her lips. Her eyes avoid his for a moment, but he thinks it's just perusal and not truly an escape. She lifts up a smile to him, drops the touch.

Her eyes drift to the study. He focuses his gaze, trying to block out the stupefying effect of that dress. "You told Lanie where the mistletoe was, didn't you?"

She laughs at that, her startled eyes drawing back to his, pleasure and satisfaction in her face. "I might have said something."

He grins back, his body easing down. From a severe state of alert back to merely elevated, a paltry yellow on his internal advisory system. Kate still gives him that smile, as if sharing it with him invites him into her conspiracy.

"If that goes south, I'm so not taking the blame for it," he warns her.

Her eyebrow shoots up, a laugh suppressed by the press of her lips. "If it goes south?"

Oh, dirty, evil woman. "Katherine Beckett," he murmurs, narrowing his eyes at her and stepping forward. "Why, I-"

"Don't say you never," she shoots back. "We all know that's not true. Your mind is constantly in the gutter."

He grins, idiotic and thrilled. "Yeah, but I restrict myself to fantasies about only one woman in particular-"

"So I've heard. But since my permission apparently makes it less fun for you, Castle, you want me to keep telling you not to?"

Stunned. Just. Stunning. Amazing. Who is this? "No, no. Forget that. I clearly didn't know what I was talking about. Fantasies are better shared."

She lifts an eyebrow, smirking, and he realizes they're still standing in the entryway, just the two of them on display in front of the whole party.

"When do you have to leave?" he murmurs, trying to guide her down into the living room.

"Already trying to get rid of me?"

"Hell no. Trying to see how long I have before you turn into a pumpkin."

She shakes her head at that. "The coach turned into a pumpkin, not Cinderella-"

"You are entirely too sexy to be Cinderella." He reaches out and brushes his thumb along the angle of her hip bone, sees her skin quiver involuntarily at his touch. A sense of power courses through him, and he risks taking her hand with his and turning back to the party. "Come eat something."

She squeezes his hand back, but lets him keep it, following him through the living room.

He can feel her at his back, the two of them pushed together by the press of people (his mother invited quite a lot of friends). After a moment, he feels the fingertips of her other hand against his shoulder as she stays close, as if she doesn't want to lose him.

His chest is tight with it, all of it, and he loses track of himself for a moment, his stride faltering. Kate bumps into him, her body that quickly flush against his back, but it knocks him back on track, gets his brain working again.

He heads to the punch bowl, but Kate tugs on his hand, drifting to the other side of the table with a rueful look at him. "Food first. You might want to keep me sensible long enough to stay standing, Castle."

He gapes at her, struck dumb. She just - did she just - yeah, she did.

She did.

Esposito better hurry his ass up and get *out* of Castle's study.

Right now.

* * *

><p>She makes space for herself on the windowseat behind the dining room table; Castle sits beside her, his body turned towards hers.<p>

Kate watches him for a moment, popping a cube of cheese into her mouth, chewing slowly. The plate is balanced on her knees, but she licks her lip free of crumbs and offers a piece of cheese to him as well.

He opens his mouth instead of holding out his hand, and despite the people that still ebb and flow around them, she pushes it past his lips, wishes for a moment it would snow again tonight, wishes they were alone for kisses.

Castle chews slowly and she glances back down to her plate, hungry but the food not at all appealing any longer.

He doesn't touch her, but she can tell he wants to. His body leans towards hers, but he keeps his hands loose in his lap. Kate glances around at the party, realizes that he's neglecting everyone else to sit in silence at her side while she eats what is basically a late dinner.

"Stop hovering. Go mingle," she murmurs, giving him a smile.

"I don't want to leave you alone-"

"I'm a big girl."

"That's not what I'm worried about," he says, his eyes dark on hers.

"I'll still be here."

He watches her a moment, then nods, his hand coming out to brush over her knee. "All right. But come find me. Soon."

She shakes her head. "Later."

He sighs, stands up from his spot beside her, casts a longing look at her, and finally wanders off to play the host.

Kate works at finishing off the food in front of her, the faster the better.

* * *

><p>Every time she looks up, Castle is seeking her out with his eyes. A question in them. <em>Now?<em>

She's stuck in the middle of a strange group - a couple of Alexis's guy friends, an actress Kate once saw in an off-Broadway production, and Alexis herself. The five of them are discussing Coward's covert operations in Britain's Secret Service during World War II. Apparently, the actress and one of Alexis's friends have both become Coward fanatics.

_Now?_

Kate bites her lip and shakes her head at him, enjoying herself as she listens to Alexis mention lines from one of Coward's diaries, published after his death.

"It's Coward's birthday today," the actress says with a smile. She's long and lean in a black sheath dress; she appears taller than Kate remembers from the stage production.

"Oh yes, it is. The 16th," the boy says, enraptured by the actress.

Alexis and the other boy roll their eyes, in sync, and Kate grins around her glass.

_Now?_

The wild fluttering of her heart seems to want to say yes. So she slips away from the Blithe Spirit discussion and puts her glass of egg nog on the kitchen counter, turns back to the crowd only to find Castle at her side.

"Kate," he murmurs.

She wants to be alone with him, but this will have to do. The energy of the party crackles along her skin; when he touches her, she feels the spark shoot into her bones.

He's got just his fingers at her elbow, but Kate slides her hand into his and pulls him along the edge of the crowd, heading for his study.

She told Lanie about what she did last night. Her friend squealed for a solid five minutes, but then told her she was brave. This doesn't feel like courage though, it just feels inevitable.

It will happen because it's always happened, it's alway been happening. The two of them.

At the doorway to his study, Castle brings his other hand up to her waist, nudging her over the threshold when she pauses to absorb the moment.

Just inside, Kate turns and finds Castle watching her, his thumb brushing over the bones of her wrist. She tugs and he lets her go, but that wasn't her intent. She has to reach out and snag his lapel, fingering the soft, stiff material, so she can haul him closer.

He comes with a little grin, his hair sticking up over the part above his forehead; she reaches out and smooths it down, runs her fingers along the bridge of his nose, skimming his lips, his chin, resting finally at the base of his throat.

Her heels give her enough height to make them perfectly aligned, but as she lets her body drift forward, Castle stops her.

"We're not even close to the mistletoe," he grins, lifting his eyes.

"I know," she replies. "I was the one who put it there."

Castle, clearly not getting it, starts trying to crowd her backwards. Kate puts both hands on his chest and holds him still.

"I know where I am, Castle. We don't need mistletoe."

And to wipe that look of disbelief off his face, Kate closes the distance.

Kisses him.

Their lips brush; she feels the hot release of his breath in surprise. He murmurs her name into the kiss, tingling arousal cascading down her body. Kate parts her mouth, tentatively touches her tongue to his lips, and feels the strong reaction in him, the way he moves suddenly to enclose her - arms around her back, legs in a wide stance to cradle her hips, his mouth slanting over hers.

Slow, purposeful, she kisses to give back, tasting the secrets of his body's need for her. When his fingers curl around the back of her skull as if to hold on, Kate eases up, barely brushing against his mouth, finding her hands have grabbed fistfuls of his shirt to keep him close.

Tremors move from him and into her; she opens her eyes, and his cheek presses to hers, his arms framing her, his fingers light against her face, barely present.

He breathes raggedly against her, then lifts his head; she watches his eyes search for the mistletoe, far behind her. Not even close. Can't pass this one off.

His voice, when he speaks, is low and raw, sending darts of answering need straight into her belly.

"No excuses, Kate."

"None."


	18. December 17: There's a Radiant Darkness

**December 17 - There's a Radiant Darkness Upon Us**

* * *

><p>She might vomit. The early morning call from dispatch, the egg nog, the kiss - all of it sloshes around in her stomach, churns acid and doubt. She sits on the side of her bed for just a moment, trying to rein it in, feels the need for routine and sameness and safety.<p>

Her feet take her to the computer, the playlist, the song for December 17th; everything will be fine if only she can hear it again. She just needs to hear him say it. Once more. Just, just a way to breathe deeply again.

But today's song is her words, not his. A reminder of where she is. Was. Might still be - somehow sitting on the fence between all in and all over.

_You were a kindness when I was a stranger  
><em>_But I wouldn't ask for what I didn't need  
><em>_Everything's weird and we're always in danger-_

It's like prescience; it's like he knows. He knows her better than she'd like, enough to set up a playlist a month in advance and guess where she might be, guess how she might balk, falter, fall apart.

_It doesn't work that way  
><em>_Wanting not to want you won't make it so_

It is her own voice, her own weary voice coming from the speakers of her computer as she hurries through her morning's ablutions, giving herself time only for the routines she needs - shower, his window, his song.

Because of course there's a murder. It's a Saturday with potential, so Newton's law comes into effect: for every action (kissing him) there is an equal and opposite reaction (someone must die). She's called him and told him to be ready - she didn't even ask if he might not want to get up this early. She didn't ask because she doesn't want him to excuse himself. Doesn't want to give either of them that chance.

Because she's been wanting not to want him for so long now. . .and she can't make it so. Can't stop herself.

She'll just have to go all in.

* * *

><p>Her heart is flipping like an acrobat on the trapeze, swinging high above the safety net. She's been performing aerial tricks for weeks now, back and forth, trying to muster the courage to release the bar and fly. But last night, last night she landed safely on the other side.<p>

Caught. Secure.

And she doesn't want to return, doesn't want to go back to that narrow board on top of the high ladder. She likes it here.

Kate adjusts the scarf around her neck; the seatbelt is pulling it tight. She dips a hand down to the cupholder and lifts out her coffee, sipping it as the car sits at a red light. Castle texts her again:

_Drive faster; I'm freezing._

She bites her lower lip but doesn't get a chance to reply; cars are moving again and she's making the turn onto his block, easing into the far lane to let the car idle and pick him up. He has to jog across the street to her, jaywalking of course, his shoulders hunched under the force of the bitter wind. When he yanks open the door and huddles inside, slamming it after him, Kate holds out his coffee.

Castle takes it in both hands and groans, slumping against the seat. "It's so cold I can't feel my face."

She huffs an amused breath of air. "That's too bad, because I've got plans for that face." She meant to gather up her courage for this, but it's too late and here he is and that was just - too perfect an introduction.

Kate snags him by the lapel of his coat, tugs him towards her. Castle is pulled off-balance by her move, but she catches him with a kiss.

He recovers quickly enough, a hand tracing her jaw as his mouth parts, brushing his lips along hers, glorious friction for a rough, thrilling moment. Heat and claiming and a stubborn refusal to back down. Then Kate flattens her hand against his chest, pushes him away a little.

"Felt that," he murmurs and slowly opens his eyes. That look - surprised by joy.

"Good," she replies, breathless, inane, dizzied by that look. "Time to meet a body."

"Oh, I'd love to meet your body-"

Kate sighs, presses her lips together as she shoves him away. "Of course."

"Of course," he says adamantly. "You'd be disappointed if I didn't."

A little. But there's no way she's telling him that.

Kate checks the traffic and pulls out into the street, but when his hand comes to rest on the seat alongside her leg, barely touching, she isn't surprised.

She is surprised, however, by the craven need to have his palm hot and flush against her thigh - and on the move.

* * *

><p>They have to park some distance from the crime scene, as usual, but this time the fluttering yellow tape marks off not a back alley but the entrance to the Manhattan subway station at Varick and Houston. Beckett can just make out the crowd around the crime scene as she waits for Castle on the sidewalk, shoving her hand in her pocket, feeling the smooth edge of the penny.<p>

She pulls it out, her palm open so that the muted copper glints in the early morning light. "Want back your lucky penny?"

Castle slams the door and comes around the hood. His face lights up, a childish pleasure in the back of his eyes. "You figured it out."

Yesterday's gift. Honestly, she stared at it for a good minute, uncomprehendingly, until it clicked with her. "I think your luck ran out this morning," she says.

"Am I pressing my luck?" he asks, grinning at her.

She gives him the flickering grin back, mindful of the police officers and the media presence just down the block. "No whammies yet. But I was hoping there'd be no body drop this morning. So here."

Kate presses into his palm. She leaves unspoken what she was hoping to do with her morning, knowing his imagination is clever enough to figure it out.

* * *

><p>Two stabbed to death on the subway platform, a third critically injured. The victim is already on his way to the hospital, so Beckett sends Esposito after him for follow-up. The five a.m. stabbing means there are absolutely no witnesses, but Beckett has Ryan snagging the digital surveillance from the security office. Transit Authority is being prickly with her this morning as well, so she doesn't get much opportunity to trade banter with Castle.<p>

She is still attuned to him though. Still knows exactly where he is, what he's doing, how his shoulders fill out the breadth of his coat, how his fingers keep stroking the lid of his coffee cup over and over.

When the formalities are through and the Transit Police are coddled, when the orders get taken care of and everyone has a job to do, she turns to inspect the crime scene.

Castle walks the grid with her, a little unofficial forensics that she likes to do when the case seems so very obvious. This group of guys who were stabbed has set off alarm bells to everyone working the case; already she's discovered arrest records for all three and a history of gang violence.

Still. She studies the subway platform to be sure. Gang violence is an easy answer, and while she would love that, she's not usually-

"We're not this lucky," he says mournfully, right as she thinks the same.

"Maybe your penny has some mojo left," she murmurs back, eyes on the ground near the trash can.

Castle shuffles to the other side of a pillar, squatting down. "Weird. Look at this. A penny."

"You can usually find forgotten pennies, Castle. It's not all that weird."

"I know it's a coincidence. It's just. . .can't help looking at it like a sign."

"Of what exactly?" she mutters, casting a look at him. "Murder is fated?"

"Murder - it's what brings us together."

She groans.

"Hey. It's better than Maury Povich."

She shoots him a clueless look, not fast enough to catch that one this morning. She didn't have that much egg nog, but it was a late night, and now an early morning.

He sighs. "Muary Povich, talk show host? You know, _Maury Brings Us Together. _You need to brush up on your pop culture references."

"I knew the 'Princess Bride.'" And then she dismisses the lame joke, focuses instead on the man practically on one knee in front of her. "And hey. Why should I know more pop culture? Long as I have you around."

The mild amusement and concentration on his face clears, swept away by a jolt of something she thinks might just be lust. Want. Unwrapped for her to see. "You'll never get rid of me."

"I've stopped trying," she offers. Almost without her permission, the fingers of her right hand unfurl towards him, just brushing the side of his cheek. Castle darts a look around, then captures her fingers, squeezing.

"I've noticed."

* * *

><p>Back in the car, he can't help studying her as she starts the engine, adjusts the heaters to blow over her fingers.<p>

"The fingerless gloves don't exactly help, do they?" he says with a laugh.

She shrugs. "But I like them."

If that's a statement about the state of their partnership, he'll take it. Probably isn't, but he likes the idea of subtle commentary and double meanings lacing their every word.

"Speaking of," she murmurs and slides her hand into her coat pocket, pulling out the gift card that he put behind today's window.

She holds it up, lifting an eyebrow at him.

He shrugs, as if it's nothing, but it's something. "Yeah?"

"What happened to nothing expensive?"

"Again, let me remind you that I never said that." He grins at her. "You just inferred."

"Castle-"

"It's for the dress," he says quickly. "I wanted you to have time to find something. Without worrying about a budget."

The instant the words are out of his mouth, he regrets the whole thing. The money thing is dicey. He knew it was a risk when he did it, fully expected her to reject the Simon gift card loaded with enough money to buy her five dresses, but after everything, after the kiss last night (and this morning), there's more to a rejection than he wants to admit, more to lose.

Kate's already withdrawing. Her eyes wander off to the distance as the car sits at the curb, engine running. Her fingers curl around the steering wheel and the gift card lays abandoned in her lap. The stiff line of her neck, the hunched shoulders. All the classic Beckett signs of her shutting down, shutting him out.

Well, he was warned. She told him at the beginning of the fall that she wasn't the person she needed to be; she basically came right out and told him she couldn't be with him until her mother's case was solved. Still he set this up because he thought the power of love could do anything, love and Christmas spirit. And well-

She's wanted this; he can see that pretty clearly. But she's terrible at it. None of this is natural for her anymore.

Yeah, pretty stinking terrible. He can't stand the cold shoulder from her now, even more so than he did before. It feels worse. He now understands with a hollowed-out intensity the meaning of _sinking suspicion._ As in, he has a sinking suspicion she's pulled away from him.

Even as he knows she's not 'who she needs to be', that it's not really him, it still stings.

"Okay," he says, injecting a little more confidence in his voice than he feels. "Lesson one, Kate."

"What?" She swivels her head to him, evidently needing a moment to pull her focus back to him.

"Lesson one. And really, I'm kinda the worst person to be teaching you relationship stuff; I mean, look at my track record. But you're stuck with me now. So. Lesson one-"

"You what?"

He hushes her with a look, repeats himself for effect."Lesson one: There's no going back. Only forward."

Her mouth drops open as she stares at him; he begins to think he's really crossed a line this time, really and truly put his foot in it. A little quiver of panic starts in his chest and makes his fingers numb.

"Who said I'm going back?"

Ah, there's the Beckett denial he knows and loves. Hates. "This looks a lot like withdrawal to me. And I've followed you around long enough to know the symptoms."

"You make it sound like I'm a drug addict," she growls, looking away from him again.

"If the shoe fits."

"Castle."

"Are you telling me that you weren't sitting there thinking of a way to nicely ditch me back at home? That you weren't trying to figure out how to not only give that card back to me but maybe the whole Advent calendar?"

When her eyes turn to meet his, he's struck by the vein of grief uncovered in those rich depths. He finds himself breathless, sick.

"That's what I'm telling you," she says finally, her voice carefully even. "I wasn't. I'm not. But I can see why you might think that of me."

Oh, shit. _Shit._ He's an ass.

And now she'll withdraw for sure, because he's hurt her, he's hurt her, and damn he thought he was being so cute and clever and knowing, and he thought he'd figured out how to be good for her, and instead he's _hurt_ her. "Kate-"

She waves her hand at him, her head turned to the window. "Give me a second."

No. No, no, no. He doesn't want to give her any moment away from him. Not at all. But the first bump in the road is all his own damn fault, and there's nothing else to do.

So he waits, watching her hungrily even though _give me a second_ might actually also mean a break from his constant surveillance, but he can't do that. Can't not look at her.

After the longest thirty seconds of his life, she takes a breath and lifts her eyes to him. "A dress."

A what?

"I'm assuming you mean for the premiere?"

"Y-yes." Yes. For the premiere. Right. If she's still even talking to him by January 1st.

"Okay."

And then she puts the car in gear and still-

Still she hasn't said anything about his idiotic, selfish, boneheaded word-vomit.

Shit. He's going to screw this up. Just like all the others.

* * *

><p>Kate Beckett survives.<p>

Despite the instant and eternal moment of breathless agony as it pierced her heart and ricocheted around in her chest cavity, that bullet didn't kill her.

She's still here, still breathing; she survives.

She put in some time at the precinct with Castle at her heels, eagerly funny for her benefit; she set into motion all she possibly could with regards to the double homicide this morning. She's ready to go by lunch time. And since Sundays are sacrosanct to the system, she can't get anything done tomorrow either.

Her weekend abruptly becomes her own again.

And she survives.

Despite the bullet. Despite Castle saying that hurtful and stupidly honest thing to her this morning, she's still here. Alive. Breathing.

For awhile it made a mess of her insides, but no longer. She may have to take it easy for awhile, give her heart a chance to recover, but she's still here.

She can't wait to go home. She craves the solitude and the quiet. She wants to pull off her work clothes and slip into her pajamas, lounge in front of the television with a book and be lost for awhile. She wants alone-ness and his music and-

Him.

She wants him there. And that's completely unreasonable. And so very strange. But-

Still true.

Kate Beckett is not only surviving, she might also be thriving. Maybe. This could be the first sign of spring after over a decade's worth of winter.

She took a bullet to the heart and that couldn't kill her. She can take a stupidly honest Richard Castle to the heart as well.

* * *

><p>She said she wasn't, but she is. Isn't she? Now she is anyway.<p>

Kate hasn't touched him since this morning, hasn't tried to tease him any further, hasn't toed the line or leaned against that wall or whatever it is she's doing here. Or not doing here, as the case may be. (He has no idea. He's really feeling lost on this one.)

So in a sense, he's right. He's created a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Sitting uneasily in the chair beside her desk, Castle senses her willingness to leave, the way she's begun packing up.

"Want to uh. . .go get lunch?" he asks, and his voice is pitched low because he's not sure he should speak of it.

"Actually, no. I want to go home," she says, giving him a little weary smile.

Oh.

"Yeah. Long day. Early morning. I get it." He's nodding, tries to gather his limbs to stand, leave her to it. Space. He knows she needs a chance to recover from his stupidly thoughtless idiocy. Just. . .okay. He can do this. He can walk out of here without her today. He can. "I'll um-"

Kate reaches out and lays her hand over his, silencing him, stilling him. He's a captive audience.

"I want you with me."

"You what?" She what? But he - and she - what?

"Come with me. We can order in."

"Yes," he blurts out, and he knows that wide and eye-crinkling smile takes over his face. "But why?"

She laughs, startled by the question, maybe not sure how to take it.

He rushes on to explain. "I mean, I said something really stupid this morning and I just figured you'd. . .ahhh, actually, let me shut up right there before I maybe say something else really stupid? Yeah. Shutting up now." He sighs and leans back in the chair. He nearly told her that he expected her to shutdown again, and then wouldn't that be exactly the wrong thing? He is so very bad at keeping them. Her. Anyone. He can't manage to keep them for long.

Kate squeezes his hand, still under hers. Surprisingly.

"I believe someone well-versed in mistakes of this nature recently taught me the first lesson-"

He groans, puts a hand over his eyes to hide from her. This is just. . .all kinds of shaming.

"No going back. Right, Castle?" She tugs on his hand, pulling his attention to her, and he lifts his eyes to hers.

He nods. He is a wretched man, but apparently he's being given a second chance. "Yeah. Uh. . .yeah."

"Forward." And it's slow to register, what she means, and then wow - she really-?

"Castle, let's go home."

He nods again, studying her, and he can't read whatever it is that's written on her face. Except maybe determination. Like she's facing some unpleasant task and has decided she will prevail. Which is better than turning away from him, running away from him, and so he'll take it.

"What did you. . .want to do at home? Eat lunch and-" He shrugs, eyebrows lifting.

"Do nothing. Have a nice Saturday. Read a book. You up for that?"

Up for it? Oh. . .Oh, Kate. "Oh, I'm up for it," he says, recovering somewhat to deliver that in the leeringest tone he has.

She doesn't even look displeased with him; she looks confident and pleased, as if he finally said something right. How did that happen?

"You were right."

"What? I was?" His smoldering look breaks in favor of delight at being told he was right.

"I would've been disappointed if you hadn't."

He quirks his lips, and she rises to stand before him, grabbing her coat and gloves and keys, reaching out a hand to help him up.

He takes it and stands as well, too close, eyes on her mouth, before he steps back and gathers his own things.

And he's going home with her.

Kate Beckett just asked him home.

* * *

><p><em>is love alive? is love alive?<em>

_is love alive?_

Castle fidgets beside her in the passenger seat; it's too cold for her Harley or taking the subway and walking the rest of the way. The wind is a blade that saws down into the bones.

The song murmurs from her phone, hooked up to her car so that the words float from the speakers and wrap around them, heavy and doubting and oppressive until the whole thing dies out.

That song was so beautiful yesterday.

Kate hopes he knows better. Hopes he sees how much she is trying, how she isn't going back. Hopes he-

Yeah. That doesn't do any good, hoping. This is certain, and hopes leave too much room for doubts. She needs to find it within herself to speak the words.

Any words.

They make it all the way from her parking spot to the front door of her apartment building before Castle speaks first, breaks the overwrought silence.

"What were you thinking for lunch?"

"Pizza," she says with relish. Casual and a regular meal for them. Bring back some normalcy. Also, Castle knows the best pizza parlors; he splurges on pizza.

Castle gives her a half-hearted smile, entirely too muted for her liking. "I'll order then. If you want to get changed."

She knows her heart's beating too fast for those innocuous words, but she still juggles her keys to her other hand, reaches for his as they climb the stairs. He hesitates behind her, just a faltering step, and then he's coming up, right at her back, their hands loose but hanging on.

Keys in her left hand make it awkward, but she has her door unlocked, and Castle ushering her inside, their joined hands at her back where his thumb makes distracting circles. She pauses in the entryway, suddenly directionless and immobile by his touch, losing herself.

"Kate?"

She rouses, glances over her shoulder to find him right there, his cheek nearly at her lips. Her eyes drift up to his, slow and having trouble focusing, only to see the flame of desire lick through his gaze.

What was she doing? Oh. "Lunch."

"Oh yes," he says roughly, and she knows - knows - he's not thinking about pizza.

And because she can, and wants to, and needs words that won't come, Kate turns slightly into him, touches her mouth to the corner of his lips with a heat and grace that belies the cold knot in her belly.

He stays very still for a moment, breathing, and then relief sighs out of him and he's cradling her jaw in his warm, large hands, thumbs at her cheekbones, eyes telegraphing need and expectation and _get ready._

A touch. A moist breath and smooth skin. The lick of his tongue in the corner of her mouth before her lips are parting under him, welcoming, curious.

And in his kiss, apologies.

She hopes, in hers, he hears it, feels it:

_No need for apologies._


	19. December 18: Let Me Be Your Everlasting

**December 18 - Let Me Be Your Everlasting Light**

* * *

><p>His body is too heavy for this.<p>

Another sharp intrusion, a jerking of his limbs, and he is awake.

Awake to sunlight. The sheets tangled in his legs. Castle lifts his head, hears it again. Knocking. And then his phone - from somewhere out there.

Unh.

He lurches out of bed, stumbles through to the living room, grabs his phone first to check it blearily as he heads for the door. A text from Kate. His mother. A couple more texts from Kate actually. She texted him? Wh - Why?

He opens the door without looking, still scrolling through the messages from her on his phone - coffee run and run run and then-

Oh.

Castle jerks his head up and there she is. At his door. A tentative but beautiful smile on her face, cups from Central Perk in her hands.

"Morning," she says, holding one out.

"What time is it?"

"You gonna let me in?" Her eyebrow quirks.

He startles backward, laughs, then takes her by the wrist of the hand holding out his coffee, pulls her over the threshold. "Good morning, Kate."

"It's nine-thirty, Castle."

Ah, yeah. "I overslept. My phone was in the living room."

"Don't worry about it," she says, shaking her head at him. But there's something less confident in her face, something sifted in her eyes. His inadvertent silence affected her - he can see it.

"I'd never have ignored you on purpose," he goes on. The coffee cup is still hot; he holds it to his chest, but he's still got his fingers around her wrist and he slides his palm against hers, holds her hand like they're fifteen.

"I know," she says, but still. Still, he doesn't think she does.

They stand in the entryway, awkward and hesitant, not taking a step one way or another. Castle watches her (he always watches her) and Kate glances around the room, not acknowledging his intense study of her (she always pretends he's not being socially unacceptable in his staring).

"It looks the same," she says finally.

Castle breaks his gaze from her wary face, her determined eyes, and glances at his loft. "The same?"

"All cleaned up like the party never happened."

"But it did happen," he says quickly, a little fearful thump of his heart.

Her eyes come directly to meet his, intent and purposeful and - and - and what is that? Determined is what he's labeling it, but it's more than that.

"It happened," she says calmly. And then a clever smile spreads slowly across her face. "It could happen again. If you're lucky."

And now his heart is pounding, seriously pounding. Castle leans in, but she stops him with a hand to his chest. His bare chest. Oh. He's still in pajama pants and bedhead and-

"Go brush your teeth, Castle. Drink your coffee. Then we'll figure out what we're doing."

"I know exactly what we're doing," he blurts out, tightening his hand around hers, the rest of her statement not entirely hitting him.

That quirk of her lips, a suppressed smile. "Today. We'll figure out what we're doing today."

He sighs, relief trickling through him, brings her hand up to his mouth and places his lips against her wrist. Her lashes brush her cheeks, lift again, a little flutter that belies the reserved Beckett who seems to want to be in control here.

And then her fingers uncurl and brush along his cheek, lightly, and his heart breaks.

* * *

><p>"So," she says as he comes out of his bedroom, showered and dressed this time.<p>

"So?" he asks, trying to button the cuff of his dress shirt. His hair is still wet but he didn't want to bother with it while she was waiting on him.

Kate comes across the living room to take his wrist between her hands, knocking his away. She deftly buttons his cuff, straightens it out while he stares at the crown of her head, stunned.

"So, Castle, your note for today."

His what?

She releases his hand and it seems to float in the air between them, made lighter by her touch. It was just a finicky button, still - he doesn't know what he'd do without her. What his life would've been if she'd never come to question him at his book release party.

She's made everything. . .better. He was floundering before her, lost.

"I've found you."

He gapes. "What?"

"Your note? Come on, you should be awake by now. You really are like this in the morning."

Oh, his note. _Come find me._

He grins. "Yeah, that happened, didn't it? We were handcuffed together. And there was a tiger."

"Focus, Castle," she says, rolling her eyes. He hasn't seen the actual eye roll in awhile; it's kinda nice to have it back.

He thinks it means she's embarrassed. That's interesting. "My note. Right. I've got your present here. Hold on one second."

He takes off for his study before she can stop him, opening the bottom drawer of his desk and pulling out a square box about the size of his fist. It's fashioned like a ring box so it will pop open, and of course, the second he hands it to her, Kate's eyebrows go up.

He grins. "It's not jewelry. While it's true that I did not say it wouldn't be expensive, I did promise it wouldn't be too much."

"You and I clearly have different ideas of too much," she mutters, but flips back the lid of the black velvet box.

He watches her face intently; she's puzzled at first, and her fingers touch the glass.

"It's another decoration for our tree," he says. "Take it out."

Yes, he's saying 'our' on purpose. So sue him. He's trying to make a point here.

Kate glances at him but does as he says, lifting the glass ornament from its bed of velvet lining the box. When she finally figures it out, she laughs.

"Oh jeez, Castle-"

He got her one of those Baby's First Christmas ornaments, except he filled it in with Kate's statistics, customizing it online.

She shakes her head at him as she reads it.

_Kate's First Castle Christmas  
><em>_Date of Birth: November 17  
><em>_Height: Depends on the Heels  
><em>_Weight: Don't Ask, Don't Tell_

"You are a goofball," she mutters, the pink ornament swinging from her fingers, her eyes meeting his as she holds it up.

Castle gestures towards his six foot tree. "Go on. Last one. Hang it up, Kate."

Her jaw works as she looks at him, but she eventually gives in and heads for the Christmas tree, blowing out a breath when she gets there. Castle comes up behind her, watches her hesitate for a second, then slide the ribbon around a branch, the ornament dangling midway up the tree.

When it twists a little before settling, Kate groans. "You put my picture on the other side."

"Well of course," he says. "Just be glad I didn't leave it _Baby's First Christmas. _I didn't think you'd appreciate me calling you baby."

"Damn right," she grunts. Then Kate sighs again, reaching up with two fingers to turn the ornament, hiding the photo back in the branches. "You're ridiculous."

"Everyone else thought it was pretty funny, actually."

Kate half-turns to him, crossing her arms. "Who is everyone else?"

"Oh just Mother and Alexis. And maybe Esposito and Ryan."

"What?" she gasps, eyes growing wide.

"I was messing around with the website on my phone. They saw me order it. But they probably think it's a joke."

Her mouth closes, a little ridge forms between her eyebrows. "It's. . .not a joke?"

Castle shakes his head, reaches out to tug on her hand, pulling her arms away from her chest. "Not a joke to me. It's your first Christmas with us."

He knows his voice breaks, knows his chest is too tight when he says it, but he can't help it. He can barely restrain himself around her, barely keep it veiled. Hidden. How much he loves her.

He wants her next Christmas to be as a Castle, and not just with a Castle.

Kate drops her eyes, but she's glancing over at the tree and she's squeezing his hand back. It gives him hope that she's maybe not too opposed to the idea. Her free hand reaches out to run across the rounded edge of the ornament, something wistful in her eyes.

Okay, and now he's having trouble not getting sappy or melodramatic here. "Kate?"

She turns back to face him, her eyes seriously intent and richly expressive.

"Will you stay all day?" It's not what he wants to say, but it's the safest thing he could think of. _Could you love me too?_

She nods. Not a moment's hesitation, not a shying away from his question. A simple yes. (But to the question he asked, not to the question he longs to ask. There is a difference, Rick.)

He leans in and touches his mouth to hers, barely there, and is rewarded with her hands at his ears, the insistence of her lips.

Kate Beckett is kissing him back.


	20. December 19  Everything's Not Lost

**December 19 - Everything's Not Lost**

* * *

><p>"I need to go," she whispers, watching his profile in the darkness. He's sitting in the floor of his study, leaning back against the couch that she's lying on, her head pillowed on her arm as she studies him. "Castle. I need to go."<p>

He frowns. "No."

"I do."

"Don't."

She sighs and reaches out to brush her fingers over the heavy lines under his eyes. They spent Saturday afternoon together, and then Sunday - since nine-thirty this morning - and now it's one a.m., and she really, really needs to go.

"Work tomorrow. Today," she murmurs, but she doesn't move from his couch.

Castle tilts his head back, blinking slowly. Bags under his eyes, but he looks peaceful. Alexis spent most of the day with them too, so Kate's done and said less than maybe she really wanted to, but that's probably a good thing. His mother kept making little comments, but Kate's discovered that even this. . .even his family's knowing looks can't keep her away.

A good sign.

She brushes her fingers through his hair, slowly, watching it spike up in places. She knows Castle is restraining himself, that he must want so much more than this, but she is trying. She's pushing herself past her comfort zone to do this, and it-

"I thought you were going to your dad's," he says, sounding petulant.

She smiles into her arm, watching him until he turns his head to look at her. "Tuesday. The 20th."

"Oh. So you have to work Monday and then you leave?"

"I have to work some of Tuesday too," she answers, trailing her thumb across his cheek.

His hand comes up and wraps around hers; he turns and presses his mouth to her palm. Kate curls her fingers around his kiss and brings her knees up to touch his shoulder, nudging him a little.

"Don't go yet," he says.

"Castle," she sighs. "I need some sleep."

"Sleep here."

She's halfway there anyway. "What about my Advent calendar?"

"I'll drive with you over there in the morning." He releases her hand and turns on his side, putting his arm up on the couch and draping it over her ribs, his palm at her back. "It's not going anywhere."

He's going to kiss her. She can feel it building up between them, and he's positioned himself just right to lean in. "Not so subtle there, Castle," she says, smirking at him. The way he looks at her, the way his resistance starts to fall apart the longer he's held it in - it's sweet. And it makes it that much harder to be good, to go slowly so she doesn't wreck everything.

"Yeah?" he says, waggling his eyebrows. "I used to be so smooth. You've ruined me."

She smiles slowly, waiting on him. Castle's hand at her back slides up to her neck, his thumb just under her ear. Her body feels restless and hot and curiously heavy; she couldn't move if her life depended on it.

Castle eases forward, his lips touch hers slowly. Her hand is still at the side of his face, fingers threaded through the hair at his temple so she can feel the strength of his jaw, the angle of his head.

Lying down like this, the way his mouth is slanted over hers sends strange shivers down her body. His kiss, crooked and soft, is pouring fire straight into her blood. She breathes in hard, and he moves to the corner of her mouth, then her jaw.

Kate blinks in the darkness, her eyelashes brushing his cheek. He starts to pull back, but he hasn't even done anything, and she wants more than this; this isn't enough anymore.

She closes her fingers around his ear and pulls him back, opens her mouth under his, lifting up to get closer, touching her tongue to his. He makes a startled noise in this throat, and suddenly he's half on the couch with her, pushing her down into the leather.

She's on her back, both arms sliding around his neck, his torso pressed against hers. This is it; this is the Castle eagerness she's wanted a taste of for so long-

It feels too damn good to stop.

* * *

><p>She can't do this to him. She just can't. It's not fair.<p>

Castle breaks from her mouth, squeezes his eyes shut, draws his hands back to the relatively neutral leather of the couch. Kate doesn't let go of his ear, keeps him close, and he shudders, pressing his forehead to her chin.

"Let go, Kate," he says finally, swallowing hard as his voice breaks.

"I don't want to," she husks. Oh, jeez, she's gonna kill him.

"You, uh, you gonna stay here?"

"Oh," she says on a sigh. "I probably shouldn't."

"Finally," he mutters. "You're supposed to be the one with good sense here. It really doesn't suit me."

She laughs, curling up around him as she shifts on the couch, her feet hitting the floor. "Okay, Castle. Let me go."

He gets to his knees, and his hands settle to the top of her thighs; he gives in to the moment and leans forward to kiss her again, unable to help himself, not when she's smiling at him like that.

Her grin widens even as he brushes his lips over hers; he feels her fingers at his chest, holding him in place so he can't lean in any further, the hot fingertips against his shirt.

When he parts from her mouth, reluctant and sighing, her eyes track his with a serious and suddenly sober intensity.

"What are we doing, Castle?"

His stomach drops.

"This is a bad idea. I need to go home." She leans forward, her hands on the couch to push off, but he panics and grabs her by the wrists, keeps her there.

"Kate, please. Please don't-"

"No, no," she murmurs, shakes his hands off to cradle his face. "I meant - no, Castle. I meant, it's late. That's all. It's late and I need to go home to my own bed and get some sleep. That's all."

He sinks back down to his feet, rubbing a hand down his face. _That's all. _His heart is pounding; he feels both sick and also dizzy. Maybe with relief. He figures every moment he's one step away from ruining everything, and the tension is killing him.

"Hey," she says, and sinks down before him in the floor, her hands on his knees. "Castle."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm good. You should go, Kate. I'll see you at the precinct, right?"

She's biting her lower lip as she stares at him, and if he were any more with it right now, he'd think of something to tell her to make it okay. But he has no idea; his brain is rebelling after that crazy roller coast ride of emotions.

She's regarding him carefully. "Are you. . .kicking me out?"

"Yeah, actually." He laughs, but he can hear the strain in it. "I can't. . .uh, there's a lot of stuff I might accidentally say. Or do. Especially with that thing you do with your mouth." He lifts an eyebrow at her, making an effort to pull himself back together. "And I think maybe this is a good stopping place tonight. Today."

She glances away from him, towards the window looking out over the city, her hands in fists on his knees. Castle wraps his own hands around hers, gets up off the floor, tugging her with him.

"Now I don't want to go," she laughs, looking back to him.

He releases a breath; she's still smiling then. "You always want what you can't have?" he asks, pulling her along after him back through to the living room.

"Always," she retorts, bumping into him in the dark room when he stops to grab her shoes from the coffee table. "And when did you start having so much damn self-control?"

Castle laughs back, so very relieved that she seems to be okay with him. . .yeah, kicking her out. "I don't know. It's relatively new. Somewhere around the same time I started tagging along with you probably."

He's already at the door before he realizes what he's said - and that Kate is now stopped at the entryway, silent behind him. He turns, trying to figure out a way to make that sound less like he's been in love with her since the beginning, because that's totally not going to be kosher with her, but she's giving him this sly look.

"Are you telling me that the past three years have been Rick Castle restraining himself? That this is you subdued?" She's trying not to laugh at him, isn't she?

"All right. Now we've progressed to insulting me in my own home. Get going, Beckett." He grabs her by the wrist and tugs her over to him; he still has her shoes in one hand. She grins at him, dirty and pleased with herself.

Damn. She's hot. How did that happen? From sleepy and sensual to seriously sexy in the space of thirty seconds. Kate slides her fingers under the placard of his button-up shirt, scratching her nails on his chest, lifts on her tiptoes while he's distracted with that to place a soft, lingering kiss on his mouth.

He loves her. Oh God, he loves her. How will this ever be any better than this right now? Her mouth on his, her teasing fingers, the darkness of one in the morning and knowing he'll see her again in just a few hours.

Knowing she's in this.

She drops back down, flat-footed, and brushes her thumb over his mouth. "All right. Give me my shoes, Castle."

* * *

><p>When she gets home, she wants to open the window on the Advent calendar, but she bypasses the dining room and heads back to her bedroom, crawls under the covers with her clothes still on.<p>

Her heart still beats irregularly, or at least it feels like it is. Her blood rushes then slows, her body flashes with heat, then trembles with chills. She's either sick or falling in love with him.

Oh, admit it. She's been in love with him. She was in love with him two summers ago and he showed up with his ex and reminded her again why she shouldn't be doing this.

She shouldn't be doing this.

But for some reason, not even that memory - the dreary and terrible summer he was at the Hamptons and she wasn't - not even that warns her stupid heart away. It only makes her want him more.

She needs to sleep. She has to sleep.

It will be less crazy in the morning.

* * *

><p>Kate brings the gift to work with her, unable to keep from smiling. Castle is already at her desk with coffee; he sits just as she steps off the elevator, and he immediately pops back up, as if he can sense her. Maybe he can. He turns and grins at her, and she halts, aware - she's very aware - that anyone who cares to look can see it all over his face. Probably all over hers as well.<p>

Move forward, Kate. Whatever you do, keep going.

She starts walking again, meets him in the middle of the bullpen, brushes his fingers with hers as she takes her coffee. She glances down at it to bring it to her lips for that first wonderful hit of caffeine (coffee first, Castle next), but she sees someone has drawn a tiny heart on the lid in black grease pencil.

Kate shifts her gaze back to him. (So maybe Castle first, coffee next). She lets her eyes say _A heart? Really, Castle?_

He grins. _Really._ "Hi."

"Hi," she says back, stupid and thrilled and _damn it this is where I work!_

She nods back towards his chair and he turns, looking happy and stupid himself, heads to his spot. Kate follows, dropping her stuff on her desk and shrugging off her coat - stilling his impulsive movement towards being a gentleman and helping her take it off by glaring fiercely at him - and then she finally sinks down into her chair and drinks her first swallow of coffee.

"Mm, better now," she tells him, then reaches back to the pocket of her coat and pulls out the bag he left for her behind the window.

He grins, leaning into her desk. "You like?"

Elephant-shaped paper clips. "Where did you find these?"

"The internet is a magical and wonderful place, Beckett. You should try it some time."

Kate relaxes a little, then realizes she was a little on edge until he called her Beckett. As if he's calling a detente until they're not at the precinct, until they can get back to being Kate and. . .and Rick.

Has she called him by his first name yet? Maybe not. Castle then. It's almost. . .hers. Her own name for him, the name that garnered first her grudging respect and then her admiration. And now. . .her what?

"All right. Open them already," he says with a huff.

She peels open the sticky flap at the bottom of the package and takes out a bright green elephant paper clip. The ear is the rounded clip part; she pushes her thumb under it and taps the clip against her desk.

"Are you playing with it?" he laughs.

She shoots him a look and takes it off her finger. "No."

He groans. "No, no, don't let me stop you playing with your toys, Detective. Do go on."

She glares at him and pushes on her computer monitor.

"Esposito. Where are we on our live victim?"

* * *

><p>"Not tonight," she says, shaking her head at him. It's nine o'clock and she's been pushing it to get stuff done before she takes her vacation days.<p>

He does look disappointed, but he seems to understand because that silly lovestruck look doesn't dim in his eyes. Does she look like that too? Is that why he's stopped hiding it? She chews the inside of her cheek and pauses in the parking garage, then leans forward and kisses his cheek.

He catches her by the waist, hangs on to the pocket of her peacoat, watching her with a smile.

"Want me to drive you home?" she says.

He shakes his head. "Not if you're not coming up with me."

"I can't, Castle-"

"I know," he murmurs and tugs on her coat, drawing her closer. He places a wet kiss to the corner of her mouth, licks the seam of her lips until she parts for him.

He tastes good. And she hasn't kissed him since last night - or really, this morning - and she so likes the way he kisses her, the way her body wakes to him.

The squeak of the elevator doors opening on the garage level has them breaking hastily apart, both a little breathless, his hand still in her pocket. She hears voices, reaches down to grab his hand, squeezing his fingers before backing away, dropping him.

He seems okay with that too, like he knows, like he's thought this all out before. Maybe he has. He seems to get her.

"Go get some sleep, Kate," he murmurs, and steps away, heading back for the elevators so he can ride it up to the lobby and catch a taxi. She hates to think of it, doesn't want him to be in a taxi alone.

"Come home with me," she says impulsively, then gapes at him as the words echo in the garage.

Castle looks at her intently. "I don't think you mean that-"

"Well. Not like-" She waves that away, shuts her eyes for second. When she looks at him again, he's not grinning any more. No, no, that's right. This isn't a joke. This is serious and she better damn well mean what she's stupidly letting come out of her mouth. "Just. Come with me. I can drop you off if you want or you can. . .stay on my couch?"

He's got his hands in his coat pockets and he shuts his eyes, as if he can't bear to look at her. She feels her heart clench. She's very bad at this when it matters. She's bad because it matters. When it was just Josh, she did whatever she wanted because it didn't count for anything. No fear.

Now she's afraid. And it makes her hesitant and awkward. Everything means something, and it means even more to Castle because he thinks like that and she just doesn't, and it's hard to figure out what she might accidentally be saying when she's not saying anything-

"It's not a good idea, Kate," he says finally, and she opens her eyes, surprised to discover she had them closed at all.

But he's right. She needs to really get some sleep, not think about this case for awhile, come back to the 12th ready for a solve. Long day tomorrow, driving to her dad's after work is over.

"Let me-" she starts, stops when she realizes she's not sure she should say.

Castle takes a step back towards her, his eyes gentle on hers. "What?"

"One more. For the road then." She tries smiling at him, recalling the little heart on her coffee cup lid, the elephant paper clips, the ornament last night that she hung on his tree, not her own.

He tilts his head at her, eyes crinkling with a confused smile. "One what?"

Kate takes the last two remaining steps towards him and pushes up to her tiptoes to kiss him. His shock flickers to heat in an instant and his hands come out of his pockets to hold her against him.

She strokes her tongue against his and he shudders; this isn't the right place to start that, but she doesn't care. She's been good all day, and she was slow and careful all weekend, kept it light and easy because of her own stupid issues, and now she wants to leave him with something to remember her by for refusing to come with her.

Yes, okay, it's kind of punishment.

But when they finally break apart, she realizes it's backfired quite a bit.

Kate Beckett is the one who will be remembering this kiss.

All night.


	21. December 20: Splendor

**December 20 - Splendor**

* * *

><p>That's too loud. Bright noise in his ear. His head hurts but he snags his phone off the bedside table.<p>

"Unh, yeah?"

A soft laugh on the other end of the phone wakes him up a little.

"Kate?"

"Yeah, Sleeping Beauty. You do know it's well past eight o'clock?"

Castle takes a glimpse of his phone's digital display and sighs. "Sorry. How're your legs?"

"What?"

"Cause you been running round in my dreams all night."

He hears her disapproving sigh. "Castle."

"I had trouble getting to sleep last night, and it's all your fault."

She makes a noise that sounds like both a laugh and agreement. "Well, don't get out of bed on my account, Castle."

"On your account, I'd get back in-"

"Castle," she admonishes. "Bring it down a notch."

"Sorry. My mouth has no filter in the morning."

"Mm, I can tell. Too bad I'm not there to help shut you up."

Well, *that* did a very fine job of it. What the hell? Kate Beckett is back to being this evil tease of a woman. Ah, the best kind.

"Sounds like I don't even need to be there," she laughs.

"Oh but it's so much nicer when you are," he sighs. "Let me get dressed and showered and I'll come there so you can shut me up in person-"

"Hopefully not in that order."

"Wha-what?"

"Castle, never mind," she says gently, and he swears he hears a kind of tenderness in her voice he's never heard before - the kind that usually is paired with a term of endearment like sweetheart. _Never mind, sweetheart. _It might be his still dreaming subconscious taking over.

"Never mind what?"

"Look, Gates just read me the riot act. Stay home today, okay? I've got to clear this subway station case and then I'm heading straight for my dad's-"

"What did Gates say to you?" he croaks out, pressing the phone to his ear. Marginally more awake now. Enough to hear there's a lot she isn't saying.

It's confirmed by the long silence on her end. "Just. More of the same."

"Kate," he chides. "She talked to you about me. About us." Castle freezes, eyes widening as he realizes - they've never said - he's never said - Kate's never said-

"Yeah," she says finally. "About. . .us."

Damn. Castle closes his eyes and rolls onto his back, bringing a hand up to forehead. He did *not* want the first conversation they have which gives a specific definition to _what they are_ to happen because of damn Captain Gates.

"Castle. Everyone knows." She sighs back at him, but it sounds resigned and not upset.

"I think they knew before we did," he snorts.

She huffs a breath of laughter and he can practically see that pressed-lips smile she's been giving him lately. Yeah, he could go on all day about that smile.

"What I mean is. . .Ryan and Esposito were covering for us. But ever since the mandatory call-in, it's much harder to go unnoticed. And Gates is observant."

"Yeah, kinda in the job description." He knows it fails as a joke, but he can't come up with anything better. He really wants to know that she's okay with this, that it doesn't bother her to be told off by her boss about appropriate behavior in workplace relationships (is that the lecture she got? or was it more tried and true invective about Castle not being good for her professionally?)

"I should go-"

"Wait. Are you - Kate, are you okay with this?" He presses the heel of his hand into his eye socket, holds his breath.

"With what? My boss treating me like a twelve year old? You getting grounded and sent to your room?"

Deflection. That in and of itself tells him she's not entirely comfortable.

He rolls back onto his side, watches the numbers on his alarm clock switch. Now it's nine. She leaves for her dad's tonight and won't be back for three days. His Christmas cheer has taken a direct hit.

"Castle," she murmurs. "Stay home today. It'll be late, but I'll call you when I get to my dad's."

He can't help grinning at that. Calling to let him know she's arrived safely. Because it matters to him, because she doesn't want him to worry. Yeah, he loves this woman.

He sighs heavily into the phone with all the words he can't say again. "Kate."

"I know," she murmurs.

She knows?

"Thank you for my thimble," she says softly.

He grins again, can imagine the answering grin on her face. "Yeah. You get it?"

"Of course. 'Peter Pan.' Most girls I knew wanted a thimble from a boy who never grew up. They'll be so jealous."

She's laughing at him, but he doesn't even care. "Were you one of those girls?" he asks, imagining Kate as a little fairy of a girl, reading the books or watching the Disney cartoon, wishing she could fly away.

"I have one now," she hums at him. "My very own."

And then she hangs up.

* * *

><p>He gets a phone call at eleven that night; when he picks up, she sounds breathless and she can't even greet him.<p>

"Oh God, it's amazing. Castle-"

His heart soars at the wonder in her voice. "Kate," he breathes.

"Deer. Seven or eight right beside the road, heading back into the trees. I'm listening to 'Splendor' and out of the darkness are these gorgeous deer-"

Kate. Oh, wow - _Kate_.

"Oh God, it was amazing. Two or three does with babies, a flock of deer - a herd? I don't know-"

He finds his voice. "A herd, sometimes a mob."

She laughs lightly; he imagines moonlight and snow, the sound of the wheels on the road. "This was no mob. This was like magic."

Magic she doesn't even believe in. "A group of roe deer is called a bevy," he offers, because he has no idea what to say in the face of her wonderment.

"A flock," she says softly. "I like my first answer."

"A group you see disappearing into the woods should be called a haunt of deer."

"Oh. Yes. A haunt," she whispers. Moonlight on her beautiful cheeks and the virgin snow and the shadowy deer.

God, he wants her. It hurts to not have her. "Where are you, Kate?"

"Driving to my dad's. I have an hour's drive left. I wanted - the music is gorgeous today, Castle."

He sinks to the top of his desk, glances out at the city. M83's 'Splendor' is today's song. Which is beautiful and perfect for spotting a herd - haunt - flock of deer.

"How long will you be there again?" He's not really asking; he already knows. He just. He wishes she was with him. "I miss you."

She sighs like the whisper of wiper blades across a snow-dusted windshield. "Three days." He can hear her take a long breath. "You could. . .come up."

He sits stunned on his desk, the sparkle of city lights in his eyes, and tries to formulate a response.

She jumps in. "Or. I know you have Alexis, and your mother, and you shouldn't-"

"I can come," he says hurriedly. "Can I come?"

The breathlessness seems to have returned to her voice. "Yes. It's still snowing. And my father likes you. For some reason," she adds in a dry voice.

He grins, able to relax. "You can text me directions. I'll come up tomorrow morning?"

"Yeah. If you make it before 9, there's breakfast."

"Made by you or your dad?"

She huffs. "Dad. I'm not making you food, Castle. I'll never get rid of you."

"You forget. You've already made me breakfast."

"Too late then," she says softly. "Stuck with you forever."

There's a long silence where all he hears is her breathing on the other end, the way she's still caught up in both the wonder of seeing those deer in the snowy woods, and also the stunning, sudden invitation to have him come see her at her dad's. _Forever._

And then speaks again, quietly. "Oh, this song. I love this song, Castle."

Splendor in the woods, deer and moonlight and snow. "I'm glad. It's not really a Christmas song, just-"

"Fits."

"Yeah." He suddenly remembers the moment when Ryan proposed to Jenny in the precinct, remembers looking over at Kate and seeing the tears unshed in her eyes. God, he wants to be the reason for those joyful tears.

"Castle, you bring your family up too," she says suddenly, all that winter woods magic evaporating with her nervous-sounding rush. "I forgot. Alexis's last Christmas before college. Bring them-"

"Maybe," he hedges, not at all certain Alexis would be willing to drive up with him for an awkward breakfast with Kate's family.

"Or not. You don't have to come, Castle."

"Oh no. Can't rescind the invitation now, Beckett. I'm there. You promised me breakfast. Just make sure there's enough maple syrup."

She laughs, light-heartened again, some of the awe from the deer sighting tinting her voice again. "How do you know you'll even need syrup? What if it's just scrambled eggs and biscuits?"

"How would I not need syrup?"

She groans on a laugh, her voice rich even over the cell phone. Nothing can strip her voice of its timber, its range, the way it curls around his heart and warms him.

"Only you," she murmurs, and he knows what she really means, but he hears what he wants to hear, and it sends a stab of joy into his chest that splits open his ribs and bleeds him out.

"Only for you, Kate," he says back, unable to help himself.


	22. December 21: If Only I Thought

**December 21 - If Only I Thought of the Right Words**

* * *

><p>Kate opens the door to him, her face more luminous than the sun dazzling the snow outside. Castle can't even move, stunned into immobility by her.<p>

She reaches out and takes him by his coat, pulls him forward; he likes confident and aggressive Kate.

"You need to kiss me."

He laughs, but glances past her to the man standing just inside the entryway. "In front of your dad?"

"Just don't squeeze my ass and you'll be fine," she says on a grin.

Castle chokes - Jim laughs from behind her - and then Kate has him pulled across the threshold and his mouth is fused to hers. His hands span her waist, mindful of nothing but the feel of her lips against his, the welcome in her appraisal of his mouth.

When she steps back and closes the door after him, he can't help blinking dumbly at her, lifting a hand to his mouth.

Kate reaches out and brushes her thumb under his left eye. "Did you sleep at all, Castle?"

He shakes his head. Bags under his eyes then. She's commented about it before. "Couldn't stop thinking about you."

"All right," Jim says dryly. "This is nice and all, but let's eat breakfast. Kate made us wait on you."

Castle jerks guiltily away from her, from his creepy, lovesick staring at her, and puts his hands in his pockets.

Kate tugs on his coat. "Take this off. Do you. . .have any bags or-?"

He sheds his coat and watches her hang it over the back of a chair. "Alexis is coming up later with stuff. Do you - is that okay?"

She smiles and glances over at her father, then back to him. "It's good. Father-daughter day, then."

Oh, yeah. It would be, wouldn't it? That's. . .sweet. "Thanks for inviting us." And then because just looking at her, drinking her in, isn't enough anymore, Castle leans over and kisses the side of her mouth, gentle and reverent. "I missed you," he whispers.

He can hear the sharp intake of her breath and then he feels her fingers at his neck. "Yeah. Ditto. Breakfast."

"Ditto," he murmurs, and then laughs as she takes his hand and leads him to the kitchen.

She's made him pancakes; there's a full jug of maple syrup at his plate.

* * *

><p>Behind the cabin is a broad, star-gazing rock, a glacial deposit from thousands of years ago, flat and slanting towards the woods just beyond. Snow still falls, but the sun is out and has warmed the rock so that the snow won't stick to its surface.<p>

Kate climbs up and stretches out, chilled by the still-icy touch of stone, but warmer the moment Castle lies down beside her. His fingers tangle in hers; she hears his head twist on the rock to look at her.

She closes her eyes and lets the strength of the sun press down into her, her bones melting to the rock.

"This is what I did on my summer vacation," she starts, falls again into silence.

He doesn't ask, doesn't comment. She's grateful for the way the wind rustles the bare branches, showers down snow with a soft breath. She's grateful for this man who has not once asked her for an explanation.

"It's warmer than I expected," he says finally.

"Mm, yeah." In the summer it baked her skin, made everything pliable and liquid, so that even the scars didn't hurt so much. "At night, you can see every star. If you lay down and watch them long enough, after awhile you can feel the earth spinning under your body, feel it all spiraling away from you."

"God," he murmurs, and his hand squeezes hers tightly, as if he can already feel it.

"Yeah, that too," she says softly. Because something spoke to her out here, finally. Something got through her misery and broke her open again. Something anchored her to the star-gazing rock with the force of the sun even as her world spun away from her.

"Kate-"

"Do you see how wide the sky is?" she says. "There's so much out there. All these possibilities. And it was too much at first. I didn't think I could hold on. It all spun too fast, and I couldn't find a way through."

"And now?" he says on a sigh.

"Now it's clear; the way is clear - it's the only possibility left. The wideness of the sky gave me signposts. A way to go. A path back. To the 12th. To you."

She opens her eyes, blinking hard as snow drifts down, touching her skin with cool tongues, remembers how hard it was to get up off this rock and go back to the city. But something pushed her on, something that was settled and certain and wiser than herself.

_Kate. I love you._

She catches a breath at the phantom of his voice in a cemetery, her hand still squeezed too tightly in his, the snow layering on her hair and lashes.

"Sometimes that's the only thing that holds me up," she whispers, not sure if she's telling her memory or the man lying quietly beside her. She turns onto her side and curls around him, her mouth to the shoulder of his coat, hoping it's enough.

* * *

><p>"I'm freezing," she says with a laugh but she doesn't stop piling snow up for him to shape.<p>

"What a whiny baby. I think your dad will make you hot chocolate when we get inside," he answers, making an ear on the rounded edge of the snow. She looks cold, but healthy, as if the air itself has given her strength and humor.

"What am I - five?"

"If you're five, then I'm thirteen. Come on, Beckett. That's a little gross, even for-"

She flicks snow at him with a narrowing of her eyes, but before it can escalate into a snowball fight, a car crunches up the gravel driveway, coming to a stop behind Castle's. He gets to his feet and grins, holding his hand out for Kate.

"Alexis is here."

She bumps his hip as she stands, and he tugs her along behind him, crushing the lightly fallen snow that laces the edge of the woods in front of Jim's cabin. He sees his daughter get out hesitantly, zipping up her fur-lined hoodie and reaching back into the car for her coat.

"Alexis," he calls out, then grins at her when she sees them.

She picks her way to them, gives him a tight hug (the roads must have been a little more treacherous than she expected - she told him she needed practice driving in the snow). "Hey, Dad. Hey, Kate-"

Kate is giving off that radiant, full-mouth smile that doesn't show any teeth; he loves that one too because he doesn't know how it's possible to look so joyful and beautiful with just a closed-mouth smile.

And then Alexis lets go of him and heads for Kate, hugging her too, and he sees the flicker of surprise ruin her focus, and then - yeah - then-

"Hey, Alexis. Glad you made it." Kate's just grinning, mouth wide, teeth, all of it. She hugs Alexis back and her eyes find his. She makes a face at him _What are you staring at?_ over his daughter's shoulder, then lets go.

Alexis leans against him, threading her arm through his, her cheek to his shoulder. "I'm glad to be here."

Kate's grin returns, and Castle knows that his daughter means she's glad to have arrived after the long drive, but he'll let Kate have her illusions. Alexis wasn't comfortable with the idea, and the only way he got her to agree to the little retreat was by conceding to her driving herself up.

"Did you have a good time?" he asks.

She sighs. "I ran into Ashley."

Kate stills across from them, her eyes flickering to his in question. He doesn't know. Alexis brought it up. If she wasn't comfortable talking about this in front of Kate, then she would've waited to speak, right?

"I'm sorry, pumpkin." He presses his cheek to the top of her head.

"I'm kinda glad now," she says, and her eyes lift to Kate. "Glad you invited us. I need to be out of the city for a few days. Until Ashley goes to North Carolina with his folks."

"Ah," Kate says, nodding. "Did he see you?"

"Yeah. We had an awkward little exchange at Lauren's house. I can't believe she invited him."

"Who was with you?" Kate asks. Castle is amused by how she's taken over this conversation, extracting information out of his daughter like the trained professional she is. He probably would've gotten maybe two words about it right now, and then when it had stewed and built up, then Alexis would've talked.

"Just a couple of my friends. Paige was nowhere to be found," Alexis sighs.

Castle doesn't understand the significance, but Kate makes a noise of sympathy and reaches out to squeeze Alexis's hand.

"That sucks. Did *he* have someone with him?" Kate gives Castle a little look and he wonders what that means, what shared history she seems to be referencing.

"No," Alexis says with a small grin. "He didn't. And he. . .he said he missed me."

"Oh," Castle murmurs, drawing his hand out of his coat pocket to hug her. "I get it." Alexis needed to look like the break-up hasn't affected her, that it's a thing of the past, the she has moved on.

Kate flashes him a grin and tugs on Alexis's hand. "Help us make a snow - wait, what is it we're making, Castle?"

"A snow bunny."

"That's right. Help us make a snow bunny. There's not enough for a snowman, apparently."

Alexis grins and rubs her hands together. "It's freezing out here. Let me find my gloves."

"And your hat," Castle says.

Both women turn to look at him - Kate with an arched eyebrow and Alexis with startled eyes.

"Castle."

"But I didn't bring a hat!"

He laughs and shakes his head. "Never mind. It was. . .old habit. Just - let me help you get your stuff inside and then we'll all come back out and finish our snow creatures."

"Wait, how many did you have in mind?" Kate grouses, following him as they trudge back to Alexis's car.

He turns and grins at her. "A whole petting zoo."

"Not happening, Castle."

* * *

><p>Alexis and Jim opt to go back inside once it falls dark. Kate finds that Castle's daughter is a lot of fun, and that her father seems to love the girl's silliness. She's not sure why that surprises her; it's just that so much of what she hears about Alexis, and even her admittedly limited experience with the young woman, has taught her that Alexis is a serious girl.<p>

Not when she's with her father, apparently. Alexis was the one to start the first snowball fight - every man for himself. And then after Kate shoved a huge chunk of snow down Alexis's back, those blue eyes sparking with shock and indignity, that's when Alexis had the bright idea to be allies.

They didn't tell Castle or her father, of course. But they stalked Castle first and cleverly trapped him, pelting him with snow, Kate bringing him down into the snowbank at the base of the house, a knee on his chest, while Jim laughed and tried to come to Castle's aid with a rain of snowballs that mostly fell apart.

When Kate finally let him up, he tried pouting but he was grinning like a fool and couldn't pull it off.

Speaking of.

Kate guides him back to the star-watching rock, pushes him ahead of her. He gets to the flat spot, lies down, and she climbs up after him. It's cold now without the sun and she shivers violently as she lies beside him.

"Look at the stars," he whispers in awe, already caught up.

Kate's too cold like this so she curls into his side, sighs when her numb nose hits the warmth of his chest, drops her hand to his ribs, shivering.

His hand lifts between them and rests over hers on his stomach; he turns his head and kisses her, light and sweet.

This is where her life was put back together. If only she could find the words to say it all, to explain, to apologize, to beg-

"Castle, I-"

"Hush," he murmurs. "I'm stargazing."

She sighs and closes her eyes for a second, but he's right. She needs to keep her mouth shut until her heart isn't still mostly wreckage. Kate turns her head so she can see the bright diamonds in the blue-black sky, points of light that time travel, little balls of ancient fire.

When she focuses on the North Star, the brilliant blue a fixed point in the dizzying sky, she can see it again, the way she is a speck and a smudge on the cosmic scale, the way the universe expands infinitely, the wild pitch of the earth under her.

After a long moment, he gasps and clutches at her arm, laughing a little breathlessly. "You weren't kidding. Holy crap. The earth spins so fast."

She laughs as well, lifting up on one elbow to look at his face, the delight across it, the magic. Magic. That's what he gives her. That's what she longs to give him.

"I already opened today's window," she says, and then reaches into her coat pocket for the little black stone on its silver chain. "What is this, Castle?"

He's still dazed looking, one palm flat against the rock as if to hold on, but he answers her. "It's a compass." And then some of the giddiness dissolves in curiosity. "Wait. Did you bring the Advent calendar with you here?"

"Of course I did. A compass? It's a stone."

He grins and releases his grip on the star-gazing rock to brush the hair back over her ear. She shivers and shakes it free. Too cold to have her ears exposed. He makes up for it by sliding his fingers through her hair and bringing her mouth down to his, a soft and warm kiss that curls in her belly.

"It's a compass. A lodestone." He brushes his thumb across her chin, then lets go to work his hand into his jean pocket.

He comes up with another little stone, this one dark grey, and brings it close to the one dangling from the chain in her hand. The black stone swings on the chain and leaps for the piece in his hand. They clink together and Kate laughs.

"A magnet."

"A lodestone is magnetized. It always finds true north," he says softly. "They used to suspend it so it could turn like the needle in a compass. It was called a leading stone."

"A leading stone," she murmurs, and then reaches out to separate the grey and black pieces for a moment before letting them thunder back together, drawn irresistibly. "To lead me back to you."

She hears him suck in a startled breath and she turns her head to see him, but can't apologize for saying it. By now, this is practically old news.

"Yeah," he says finally, and curls his hand around the joined rocks. "I hope so."

"I think it's got a pretty easy job, leading me," she replies, watching him so that her meaning is clear. "I've always been able to find you." He's not that far ahead of her; he's not that far away.

"Kate. I can't - I have to-"

She bites her lip and drops her head to his chest, her heart pounding at the need in his face. The need to speak. And if he does, if he can't keep it in anymore, then she won't stop him.

_Say it, Castle_.

He makes a soft noise in his throat, his arm tightening around her. Still he doesn't say the words.

"I missed you. I missed you."

She knows he's not talking about yesterday; he's talking about this summer.

She isn't crying. She isn't.


	23. December 22: Hold On Hope

**December 22 - Hold On Hope; It's the Last Thing That's Holding Me**

* * *

><p>He wakes from a darkness he can't name, an unknown, finds his body paralyzed under the sheets, his heart pounding in his throat, sweat making his fear liquid and out of bounds.<p>

He's all right. It's all right.

He doesn't even know what he was dreaming about. But he still has the sense of the wide black sky swinging sharply away from him, the earth hurtling through space-

Castle wrenches out of bed, stumbling to his feet, breathing and upright, putting distance between himself and the feeling of everything going too fast, everything sliding right past him.

He scrubs both hands over his face and shivers; it's cold and full dark. His mouth is dry. Castle heads for the guest bedroom door, trips on his shoes and falls into the doorframe, smacking his shoulder.

Okay, well now he's awake.

He goes into the hallway as quietly as he can (though slamming against the door might have woken everyone up) and heads for the kitchen. He'll get some milk, maybe heat it up (haha, put some honey in it?), try to forget the unnamed thing that haunted his dream.

Castle shrugs his shoulders against the drying, sweat-soaked shirt, steps into the living room, rubbing a hand at his arm where he landed awkwardly. The open floor plan of the cabin means he can see the dark kitchen from here, and he swallows thickly against the sock-like feeling in his mouth. He doesn't turn on the light, doesn't need it, and opens the fridge.

Ug, the milk is low. He shouldn't drink the last of it. He'll get some water instead.

Castle turns to grab a glass and jerks to a stop.

Kate's on the couch.

Asleep on the couch. Blankets are piled over her, a mess of her hair spills along a pillow, all shadows. He moves towards her, unthinkingly, drawn by the darkness, the lack of moon or starlight, the need to see her face, make sure she's breathing.

He does recognize, in a moment of clarity, that this is probably what his dream was about. He stills at her side, hesitating over the couch, and then sits down on the floor, leaning against the arm, watching her.

She does breathe; she's fine. She's all right. Nothing has been taken from him.

One hand is curled up at her neck, her chin tucked in. He didn't know she was sleeping out here. Alexis must have her room then, because Kate was the one who showed her where to put everything. But she shouldn't get kicked out of a bed just because of them.

He can't help brushing the back of his fingers against her cheek. She's beautiful. And falling in love with him. And it makes everything - everything - okay again.

She's falling in love with him.

Castle leans in and smooths his thumb at her forehead, kisses her with a faint dusting of his lips, not wanting to wake her.

"Kate," he murmurs, but doesn't want an answer. Wants only to say it. "I love you."

* * *

><p>She's climbing the stairs. The escalator. No, now it's the stairs. She's climbing the stairs and it's okay; he's right there. From the other set of stairs, he takes her hand; it does make the climb a little harder. It throws her off-balance, but she won't let go.<p>

She gets to the first landing and stops for a moment, breathing hard, feels him trying to shake her hand off. She glances over at him, but it's not him. It's her mom.

Her mom is shaking her hand off.

Kate squeezes harder, nearly lurching over the railing to grab her mother, to hold on.

"Let go," her mother says.

NO.

"Let go, Katie; let me go-"

The escalator starts up again, all of the sudden, the grinding of a motor and gears working, and Kate realizes-

She's moving. And her mother is not.

"Mom-"

"Let go, let go-"

She feels a hand at her cheek, a brush of fingers, feels his soft kiss, feels rather than hears the warm love-

She turns and Castle is right there with her on the landing, the same escalator, same staircase, regarding her. He steps into her space, his body flush to hers, and his hand travels down her stretched out arm, his fingers light and seductive and somehow sad.

Her mother, urgent and falling behind: "Katie, let go-"

When his hand gets to Kate's, to her tight grip on her mother's fingers, the cramped hand that has such a tenuous grasp on the one thing that matters-

His hand replaces her mother's, slides between them-

She's jerked loose, the escalator rising, Castle bringing her hand back to rest on his chest, on his wildly beating heart.

_I love you._

She opens her eyes to darkness and a looming presence.

"Castle?" Her voice is raw.

His face pulls back from hers, surprise and wariness stamped on his features. It's dark, she can't understand where they are, what-

She glances to her wrist, but no - no handcuffs. At least there's that.

"Sorry," he whispers. "Didn't mean to wake you."

Wake. Awake. It was a dream. Something. A staircase and handcuffs?

She takes in her surroundings, the familiar couch, the picture window, the cloudy sky beyond. Castle is sitting in the floor before her, sleep-rumpled. All she has to do is spread her fingers out from beneath her chin to touch him.

He startles, looking at her again, and she smiles at him. "You okay?"

"Woke up. Got thirsty."

She knows that look - evasion - but she doesn't call him on it. It's late, or is it early?

"What time is it?"

He sits forward a little to see the clock in the kitchen. "Three."

"Mm, time for a window," she murmurs, smiling to herself.

"What?"

"My gift, Castle." She spreads her fingers over his neck, touches his chin with her thumb. He responds to the gesture by turning to look at her again, his eyes unreadable in the darkness.

"Ah. Where is the calendar?"

"In your room," she laughs, because he has no idea.

"What? I didn't see it."

"Did you unpack?" She knows he didn't. Too much work; she's pretty sure he's the type to live out of his suitcase. She remembers LA and the hotel room, remembers him putting his dress shirts out for the hotel to press.

"No, I didn't unpack. We're only here for one day."

"It's in the closet floor. It looks like a doll house."

"What?"

"When I was little, my Barbie dream house was in my closet floor. I'd play in there. My closet was like. . .a magical world. A wardrobe to Narnia. I could go anywhere from there."

He grins at her and leans in to press his mouth to hers, startling her. She almost. . .forgot they were doing this. Kissing. How has she forgotten? Must be the darkness of three in the morning, or the discombobulation from dreaming.

His lips thin and then his tongue slides into her mouth, insistent in a way he hasn't been before. She feels strange lying down like this, but it reminds her of that night in his study, her on his couch, the way they ended up chest to chest.

She wants that. That exactly.

Lying on her stomach though, won't get her there. So she shifts back onto her side and tugs on his neck, pulling him with her. He breaks the kiss; she sees his eyes in the darkness, the strength of things between them. And then he crawls up onto the couch with her, his hands sliding to her neck, thumbs brushing her cheeks, their legs tangling, his body hot and heavy against her.

Her heart races; she stares at him.

"Too much?" he murmurs, a hand sliding down to her chest, feeling her betraying heartbeat. "Too much," he says and slides back off the couch, stands.

"No," she says, suddenly cold. She raises up, half sitting, holding her hand out to him. "No, I'm fine. It's - just give me a second. Just. Come back. Castle, come back down here-" Is she begging? She's not begging; she curls her fingers up, frowns at herself.

He regards her, his face dark in the room, then takes her hand. Instead of returning to the couch, he tugs her up.

"Let's go open the window. In your dollhouse calendar," he says, giving her a smile with teeth that she can see in the darkness.

She lets him pull her up, but she takes a moment to press her body against his, her arm around him, hoping it makes up for being surprised, for not being ready.

Castle presses his palm to her lower back, then slides his hand up to cradle her head. His mouth dips to hers, gentle and undemanding, too fluid for her to catch. When he pulls away, he also steps back and takes her hand, heading for the guest room and the advent calendar.

* * *

><p>She sits beside him in the floor, the closet door open to reveal the Advent calendar. Their shoulders brush. They've kept the overhead light off, but she's turned on the lamp that rests on the dresser.<p>

Castle watches her a moment, but she doesn't reach for the window yet.

"Why were you sleeping out there on the couch?" he says. "Alexis could've slept there, let you sleep in your own room."

She looks over at him with her lips tugged up at one corner. She's laughing at him. He knows that look.

"Castle. Alexis didn't kick me out of my room. You did."

"Me?" He glances around, shocked. He thought this was the guest room. Oh.

She slides her hand to his thigh, and he startles, looking back at her. "Poor Castle. Merely two feet from my underwear drawer and you didn't even know it."

Her underwear? Holy. . .mother of. . .

"Well I know it now," he says with passion and moves to stand.

She squeezes his thigh, and the feel of her fingers is completely debilitating, rendering him immobile. She has this power to do that - knock him senseless.

"Sit," she mutters, narrowing her eyes at him.

"You started it," he says back. And of course, all he can think about is Kate in her underwear - scraps of lace or silk, but not coordinated. She'd be the kind of woman to wear a scandalous pair of red thongs with a navy polka dot bra. Do they make polka dot bras? He's ashamed that it's been entirely too long since he checked out the women's lingerie ads.

"Focus, Castle," she laughs, snapping her fingers in front of his face.

He grins slowly and lets his eyes drift over her pajamas - black leggings, oversized purple shirt that hangs off one shoulder. No bra then. Too bad.

"You have a hole in your leggings," he says, amused by the rip in the seam just to the left her knee. He reaches out and sticks his finger in the hole, tugging the material away from her calf, stroking.

She slaps his hand. "Stop, you're gonna make it bigger. These are my favorite pair."

"I'll buy you a new pair-" Oops.

She raises an eyebrow, giving him a long look. But she doesn't run, she's not running, and that's - well, more than an improvement, that's kind of a miracle.

"Let's work on these gifts first, Castle," she murmurs and tilts her head to the calendar.

December 22. It's. . .oh yeah. He grins widely and chuckles to himself. "Yeah, yeah, go for it."

She slides forward, closer to the Advent-apartment-buildings, but she glances over her shoulder at him with a look. "You are entirely too happy. It doesn't bode well."

"Yeah, you're right. Entirely too happy."

She snorts and goes for it, sliding her finger into the half moon carved into the window, pulls it open.

He's never been here before when she's gotten one of his gifts and it's - well, this is a great one to see.

She tilts her head and glances back to him, eyebrows knitting together. "A stuffed animal?"

Yeah, she is so not a carnival-games-toy kind of girl. "Pull it out."

Kate reaches in and tugs on the plush critter; it pops free and she turns it over in her hands. Purple and cute, a kind of bumpy ball with two huge eyes.

"Is this a squid?" she mutters.

Castle reaches for the tag that's attached to one of the little nodules, lifts it for her to see.

"Epstein-Barr Virus?" she reads, giving him a look.

He grins.

She glances back to the tag, flips it open. He watches her read the information silently, and then she bursts into a laugh that just might wake the whole cabin.

"Holy shit, Castle. You gave me mono!"

He laughs back, can't keep the ridiculous grin off his face, reaches for the little, purple, stuffed microbe. "It's the kissing disease. I was just kinda hoping-"

"You are the biggest goof," she says, shoving on his arm and taking back the purple mono bug. "What did Rick Castle give me for Christmas? Mono. Lovely."

"Yeah, I gave you mono-" He bumps his shoulder against her, looking down at her in the soft, golden lamplight. Her laughter, her head-shaking, the hair spilling around her shoulders - so gorgeous. "Since you've got mono now, might as well keep at it-"

She silences him with a hot kiss, her tongue working at him; he feels the purple plush at his neck as she brings her hands up. His brain gets cloudy; he loses track of anything but the feel of her mouth, the taste of her, the feel of her skin under his fingers as he slides his hands up her shirt.

She breaks away with a stuttering breath; he stares at her mouth, at the way her teeth bite her bottom lip. Kate's hands slide down from his neck, brushing his chest, curl at his thighs, the too-sensitive place where his hips meet his leg. Castle shivers, his hands on her knees now. He shouldn't have touched her like that, should have kept control.

"We should go back to bed," he says finally. He pushed too much, too far out on the couch just now, and if she stays here looking at him like that, he'll do it again. "I'll take the couch; you can have your room back-"

"No, Castle," she says softly, brushing her hair back.

Not having her hands on him is both a relief and a disappointment. "Kate. I'm not letting you sleep on that couch-"

"First of all, my dad would kill me for letting a guest sleep out there. And second, I wake up earlier than you anyway. I'll make breakfast, then come get you. I know you need to head back before the snow starts."

He smiles at that, his chest filling up with. . .yeah. With things he can't say except when she's asleep.

"But your. . .you shouldn't have to be kicked out; Alexis or I should have-"

"Hey," she says, pushing on his knee. "You don't fit on that couch. I do. Also? I didn't want your daughter to think she was an afterthought. I wanted her to have a place here."

His mouth drops open. She just - she - his daughter and she-

Kate lifts to her knees and kisses his cheek, her hands on his shoulders for balance. When she shifts back, he sees that little purple mono in her hand, clutched against her chest, and it makes him grin.

"And Castle?"

He brushes a finger along her knee, his heart soft towards her.

"Next Christmas, when we're here, I won't have to sleep on the couch."

_When we're here. _He glances to the door as if he can see through it to the rooms beyond. He tries to be nonchalant about her including him for next year. "Oh? Is your dad adding on to the place?"

She laughs, her eyes that amazingly dark night-sky. "Oh, Castle. No. No, he's not. The bed in my room - this room - is a queen."

She gets to her feet, brushing a hand through his hair, and walks away.

Castle watches her go as the meaning of her words sinks in.

This bed is a queen. Next Christmas, they'll be in this bed together.


	24. December 23: Silent Sigh

**December 23 - Silent Sigh**

* * *

><p>It's not that she misses him; she's just been running flat-out since this summer, and the chance to sleep in is so attractive, so rare.<p>

She and her father spent yesterday in his carpentry shed, working on little projects together and mostly not talking. The kind of silence that falls between two people who have seen the worst in each other but who are - in the end - still here, still family.

Then her father forced her to go through a couple more boxes in the guest room, where Alexis stayed yesterday, boxes from the old house. Kate found her old Barbies, kindergarten projects, school supplies, her Trapper Keeper with its graffiti on the back - friends' doodling, Lisa Frank stickers, proclamations of love for whatever cute boy smiled at her. At the bottom were class folders and notebooks. She opened up the writing prompt journal from ninth grade and was mortified; she skimmed through her Pre-Algebra notes and had to laugh at the too-big, rounded handwriting.

Her father offered to strip the bedding and put on clean sheets, but she waved him off and went to bed late, too tired from memories and silence to do much more than change into pajamas and crawl into bed.

She must not have noticed at first. She must have been distracted.

She's not now. It's not that she misses him, and that she can smell him on her sheets-

She just wants to stay in bed a little longer this morning. Her nose buried in her pillow, the oil of his body and the scent of his sleep, and then under that, something sharp which reminds her of all the times their lives were in danger.

Not fear. Adrenaline.

Kate turns over - her ribs ache on the other side, her scar itches - and she draws her arm under the pillow, curls up. She opens her eyes after a moment and sees her closet, knows what lies beyond it, knows it's the start of her day.

She is wrapped up in Rick Castle's scent.

She doesn't want it to end. That's the real reason she's still in bed at eight o'clock in the morning, still lazily luxuriating in sheets that smell like him. She wants it to last forever.

The chase.

She wonders if this means she doesn't ever want to be caught.

His smell is so overwhelming that when she closes her eyes, she can feel him at her back, close but not close enough, breathing on her neck, his fingers at her spine. It's so real, the feeling so intense, that she almost - almost wonders if he turned around and came back.

But he didn't. It started raining while she was making breakfast yesterday; he was concerned about Alexis driving back in the mixture of sleet and slush on the roads. He followed her home; this is where he is now.

She could stay here all morning, pretending he'll be sliding back into bed, or she can stop being such a girl and get up. The sooner she does, the sooner she starts for home.

This is what moves her, in the end. This is the only thing that can pull her from bed, the knowledge that today she has to leave; she has no more time to waste.

Kate goes to the bathroom first, avoids the one thing she wants to do by doing everything else - brushing her teeth, taking a shower, getting dressed, packing up, loading her car. All except for one thing. And then finally she's standing in front of the Advent calendar, the closet door thrown open, and she lets herself go for it.

But it's not anything she expected. A little device. Slim, only about three inches long, with a power button, play, and advance. A remote? She has no idea what this is, what it controls, and of course, that's his master plan. He wants her to come over and find out. Or maybe he left something at her apartment? Or it's the remote to his blu ray player and he wants to watch "It's A Wonderful Life" with her, something else cheesy and so Castle.

Nothing to do about it now.

Her father carries the calendar out to the car, loads it in the backseat. He comes inside and kisses her cheek and gives her one of his best hugs - the kind where she can bury her nose in his chest and stand there for awhile, made more complete by his embrace.

She realizes this moment here is the first time she's thought about how much she misses her mother. The past two days were filled with memories and stories shared between them and with the Castles, but standing here saying good-bye in his living room is the first time she's thought-

_My mother is dead._

And even then, she realizes that she isn't thinking about how her mother was murdered, but just that she's gone. Her mother is gone, and she can't be recovered.

This is what Kate has left of her: the mother's day cards she made when she was little, the photographs of their memories, the stories they can tell about her, the last of her perfume in a bottle on her dresser.

The alley, the crime scene photos, the victim's report - those things are not her mother. She has to let them go.

"Actually, Dad, I'm gonna take some of that stuff home with me," she chokes out, lifting her head to look at him.

He nods. "I haven't done anything with it yet. All still in there."

Kate bites her lip, brushes the moisture from her cheek automatically. Her father leads her back to the closet in the guest room where he's been storing everything, lets her sift through the piles again. She takes out a few notebooks, a birthday card she made for her mom, can't help but linger over her Barbies. Her mother always told her to keep them in good condition because one day she'd give them to her own daughter, just as Kate played with her mother's Barbies as well.

But her life has taken a different track.

She told her father to donate them, but for a moment, Kate can't bear to give up on her mother's vision, on her childhood certainty of her own future - Kate takes her favorite Barbie and holds the little collection of things to her chest. Her father does her the curtesy of remaining silent.

And then she's on the road again.

* * *

><p>She texts Castle when she stops for gas; sees his answer as she's paying for a bottle of water. He wants her to come over so he can explain the gift behind today's window. Kate argues with herself the whole drive back, not listening to the playlist because it sways her too easily, but knowing with a strange sense of relief that she is doomed.<p>

It's not even a battle anymore. It's not a will they or won't they - it's just a matter of when.

Not tonight.

Not tonight because her heart is raw, and she fell asleep in sheets that smelled like him, woke to the ghost of his presence in bed with her. Not tonight because she needs space alone in her own home to adjust to the shifting perspective of _My mother is dead_.

Not _My mother was murdered._

She meant to drive home first, but that doesn't happen. She drives towards him, recognizes where her auto-pilot has taken her, and presses the heel of her hand to her forehead, the car stopped at a red light but eager to get there.

Damn.

Not tonight, she reminds herself. Not tonight.

She texts him when she's on his elevator, the car parked blocks and blocks out of her way because of the holiday weekend, the little remote in her coat pocket. Her fingers are numb from holding her phone out, poised to hit send but not ready. Not ready.

He doesn't even get a chance to text her back before she's at his door; he's opening it and pulling her inside, and it's only one in the afternoon.

"Did you have lunch?" he asks, like no time has past away from her.

"No. But this first," she says, and pulls the remote from her pocket even as he takes her coat from her.

"Ah, actually, no. Lunch first," he says back, giving her a hesitant smile.

She forgot to kiss him. She's showed up at his door after driving in from her father's and she forgot to kiss him.

But he didn't kiss her either. And he looks. . .doomed. They are both doomed. She wonders why.

"Castle."

"I toasted some sandwiches. And made soup. You're probably hungry," he hurries on, walking towards his kitchen.

She is hungry. And she needs - there's a need in her that's making her restless, and edgy, and she doesn't know what it is, only that if she can kiss him, taste him, she'll know.

"Castle, get back here."

He jerks to a stop and turns, surprise melting his features. She doesn't move from the entryway, and sure enough, Castle comes back to her, regarding her like she's a dangerous animal, but still - he comes.

Kate reaches out and snags the pocket of his jeans, tugs him until he's stumbling into her, his hands going automatically to her waist for balance. A lick of contentment streaks through her; she leans in and lays her head on his shoulder.

"No heels," he murmurs.

"You heeled instead," she says back, the words tumbling from her mouth before she knows what she's saying.

He laughs lightly and runs a hand up her back, encircles her neck. "Only for you."

She has no doubt of that. "Just sneakers; I didn't feel the need to wear heels."

He makes a noise in his throat like pleasure, and she wonders what psychological significance he's attached to her need to wear heels, what double meaning he reads in her play for comfort.

"You fit like this too," he says after a moment, and it makes her smile.

And then she wants to kiss him, even as she likes this right here, even as it comforts and banishes the thought she's had all day: _My mother is dead._

So Kate turns her head towards him and brushes her lips against his neck in reconnaissance, touches her tongue to the skin over the hollow of his throat. Castle engages her advance with his mouth, taking a long and devastating kiss from her.

She can't marshal a defense, can only feel the way he bows over her to get at her mouth, the column of her throat, his hands sliding up and down her back. When he clutches too tightly at her hips, she arches against him. He has to bend over further; she draws her arms around his neck and holds on, regaining control of the kiss, coming up on her toes to subdue him.

Their mouths part for breath, refueling, and she sucks in a lungful of air, tries to ignore the friction of his chest moving against her, her legs falling on either side of his thigh.

"Lunch," she agrees finally, unwinding her arms, dropping back flat to her feet, her heart pounding at the slide of his body against hers.

"Suddenly I'm not that hungry," he says, but his stomach growls loudly and betrays him.

She quirks her lips at him, then gives in to the laughter, brushing a hand at his waist and turning him towards the kitchen.

"Food, then your remote, Castle. Then-"

Well. Not tonight.

* * *

><p>He's afraid.<p>

It's his gift to her, but he's still afraid. He doesn't know how much stomping around in her heart he can do before she needs him to leave - even if it's just for a little while, even if it's just to reassemble the pieces so she can later invite him back.

She sat beside him during lunch and smiled, her fingers brushing his thigh or the top of his arm as they ate. And now he's going to show her what that remote control operates. And-

The front door pops open, reverberates off the wall, and bounces back to Alexis who is struggling inside. Castle hops up first to help her, but Kate is right behind him; they take shopping bags from his daughter so she can get inside.

"Kate. Did you just get back?" Alexis says, dropping the rest of her bags in the floor.

"Your dad was feeding me lunch."

"Are you staying for awhile? Because I need to wrap Christmas presents and if you're here, you can keep Dad distracted." Alexis gives her a grin and slides a glance to her father, smirking at him.

"Christmas presents? This late?" Castle claps a hand to his mouth, mock aghast. "Daughter!"

"I got - uh - pulled away from the city earlier this week," she murmurs, arching an eyebrow at him.

Kate startles. "I'm sorry. I interrupted your plans-"

"Hey, no. It was fun. I like your dad. He's quiet; it's a nice change." Alexis shrugs at Kate, then starts gathering up her bags again.

"Wait a second," Castle says, picking up more from the floor. "Are you suggesting that I am not quiet?"

He sees Kate grin behind her hand as he follows his daughter upstairs with the rest of her bags.

"Dad, it wasn't exactly a suggestion." Alexis laughs at his pout and leans back to kiss his cheek. He puts her shopping bags in her room and gives her a one-armed hug before she can kick him out, then heads back downstairs to Kate.

"Your mission," he begins, wriggling his eyebrows at her. "Should you choose to accept it. Distract me, Kate Beckett. Do your worst."

She laughs at him, that wide and glorious sound that wraps around him and tugs him closer. She doesn't even move; she just waits for him, and he's all too glad to come.

Castle brushes the hair out of her eye, lets his palm rest against her cheek. He watches her tongue come out to touch her top lip and retreat, her teeth bite her lower lip, her laughter still resonating around them.

"I know a good distraction," she murmurs.

"Oh, I do too," he grins.

"I have something, Castle. Something that belongs to you."

"Oh, you do? Belongs to me, huh?" He is purposefully misconstruing her words, and he likes that she only continues the banter.

"Oh yes. All yours, Castle. Want me to show you?"

"I like the sound of that."

"I'd just like to know what it is," she says finally, slipping her hand between them and holding up the remote, still grinning saucily at him.

"Curiosity killed the cat," he says on a sigh, wanting instead to spend a few hours kissing her. Not spend those hours defending himself.

"Satisfaction brought him back," she finishes, then taps him with the remote and leans in to brush her lips across his. "Come on, Castle. Your turn for show and tell."

His hand is still in her hair, so he takes command of her kiss by angling her head back, drinking deeply of her mouth. He feels her fingertips against his neck as a light counterpoint to the pressure of their lips, the stroke of her tongue as she battles back.

This is the passion he fantasized about. This is the Kate who owns a motorcycle and dances provocatively at nightclubs; this is the Kate who modeled naked for an art class and has a tattoo he has yet to see. This is that too-short sweater dress and the Russian accent. The dominatrix voice and the promise of next time without a tiger. This is the undercover kiss without pretensions.

Her nails at the back of his neck, her teeth at his lip-

She breaks from him suddenly, her eyes glittering. "The remote, Castle."

All he can do is stare at her for a long second, and then he nods. "Yes. I - right. Yes."

Castle takes her hand and leads her to his study, feeling her fingers curl around his, warm and dry. He leaves the light off and maneuvers her into place in front of his desk. He can hear the rain more clearly in here, see it streak down his window. It must have started while they ate lunch; he didn't notice, too busy touching her.

"Before we start-" he says, rubbing his jaw. "I need you to know-"

"Castle," she says sharply.

"Before I met you," he continues, plowing ahead. "There wasn't much I thought was worth anything; nothing had much depth to it. My daughter - she was it. If you'd have asked me, I would've said I'd die for her. And even that. . .it was abstract, a concept. I didn't know the depth of anything, Kate."

He can feel her eyes on him; he's watching the clouds outside, the rain that still falls.

"But working with you, with the 12th, has shown me how much there is, the depth of this life. Truth. Loyalty. Faith. Courage and honor. Peace - saving an entire city from a nuclear bomb - keeping the world from going up in smoke - giving a victim's family some justice. I've let myself believe that these are the reasons I keep doing this. But I know now that there's really only one thing worth dying for, Kate."

There's a long silence between them, and even though he doesn't have the lamp on in his study, even though the sky is clouded with rain, there's enough ambient light for him to see the glitter in her eyes. She's not looking at him.

She doesn't ask what that one thing is, that one thing he will die for, but he knows that she knows. Even though she never heard him say it, or doesn't remember him saying it, she knows.

"All right. Turn it on, Kate."

She frowns at him, her head swiveling to his in the darkness, but she palms the remote and presses the power button.

His story board lights up.

Her startled noise is replaced only by the long breath he takes, not realizing he's been holding it. Kate steps closer, leaning against his desk, as she takes it in.

Castle watches her back, the angle of her head as she absorbs every detail of this monstrosity of a story - the murder of her mother. He wants to touch her, see her face, but he doesn't know if he has that right.

She turns back to him, the light from the story board on her face, blue and white and deathly.

"Castle."

Something in her voice has his feet moving towards her, his arms coming up to embrace her, but she holds out her hands to stop him.

He pauses before her, his heart squeezed in his throat.

"You have new information," she says.

"Yes."

"You've been working on this. Lately."

He waits, everything - everything - held in her hands.

"Castle."

Her voice sounds thin.

"I miss my mom," she breaks, a gasp of her breath, and then she's leaning into him, her face in his neck, her arms around him.

"Oh, God, I'm sorry," he murmurs into her hair, holding her tightly against him, grateful and at the same time, grieving. For her.

"I miss my mom," she says again, and he feels her tears on his skin. This was supposed to be a gift, but it's only made her cry.

He cradles her head and presses her against him, trying to absorb her sorrow through his skin, his body. Sometimes he forgets that a 19 year old girl lost her mother, has been without her for so long now. He forgets that it's not just this case she has to solve, but it's a presence that haunts her with its absence. She had a mother, and now her mother is gone, taking with her all those moments, all the advice and stories, the heritage and hand-me-downs, the things of a mother.

Gone.

"Why did you do this?" she says quietly and lifts her head.

He lets her go, but she doesn't go far, only leans back to sit on his desk as if she can't keep standing. One of her hands comes up and brushes the hair back from her face. Her eyes are rimmed with black, streaks of her mascara down her cheeks. Castle reaches forward and rubs his thumbs across her skin; she ducks her head and does it herself using the back of her hand.

"After you were shot, someone called me," he starts. He's had this story memorized for so long it comes pouring out of him effortlessly, despite the roiling in his guts. "A friend of Montgomery's. The Captain sent him all the evidence he'd accumulated over the years, all the files and proof of this. . .conspiracy. To use as blackmail, to keep his family and you, Kate, to keep you all safe."

"Montgomery was doing that?"

"Yes. And now this guy - he made a deal with them - your safety, the Montgomery's safety, in lieu of dropping the investigation. He was calling me to assure my cooperation, and through me, yours as well."

"Castle," she growls. "You convinced me to let it go for now. But this-"

"I wasn't going to ask you to quit, knowing that this is the one thing you need, Kate. So I started the investigation myself, by myself. He said you had to drop it, but he said nothing about me-"

"Castle," she moans, dropping her head to her hands. She scrubs over her face, her breath hitching.

He expects a fight; he expects her to walk away. She's wearing running shoes, for goodness sake. But she doesn't do either of those.

"This is dangerous," she hisses at him, gesturing behind her. "Castle, they shot me in a crowd of police officers. If they find out you're doing this, they will shoot you too."

He doesn't say anything. What can he say? There's no defense for that, because he knows what he's willing to risk for her. He knows what he will die for. This is acceptable to him, even knowing that he'd leave his daughter alone. Even that.

"You can't do this," she says, squeezing the remote in her hand. "You can't put your life on the line for this."

"You do," he says.

The noise she makes is not anger nor is it frustration, but something like hysteria. She presses the heels of her hands into her eyes and her shoulders hunch. The short bark of laughter is strangled by her growl.

"Kate."

She lifts her head, determination in her eyes. "The remote is for me. My gift."

He nods.

"Then I have control."

"You said. . .there was a wall. Asking you to not investigate your mom's murder is like. . .is kind of shooting myself in the foot." He gives her a lopsided smile, hopes she understands. "So I'm giving it back to you. Because it's only right."

She snorts and stands up again, points the remote to the board and turns it off. Then she puts it in the back pocket of her jeans. "Fine. Then it stays with me. And it stays off."

"Kate-" The wall. She needs - and he needs her - and if she can't be with him while the wall is up, then he can't, he won't stop-

"It stays off, Castle. For now. Okay? Because. . .because my mom is dead. Because everyone is dead."

This statement means something to her, but he doesn't know what. Other than to indicate the risk involved. "Kate?"

"The wall has nothing to do with solving this-"

"But you said-"

"It's just what I named it, Castle. It's the only label I had for it. But it's not the truth. The truth is. . .this wall is because I've never allowed myself closure; I didn't want her to be gone. But she is gone. And I thought getting the guy who killed her would do it - but I don't think it will."

Damn. What else is there? He can't - how long is he going to have to wait? What can he do now to-

Suddenly Kate is pressing her mouth against his, hard, her hands at his hips to anchor him to her. Castle wraps an arm around her waist, immediately liking this idea, letting her tongue run across his teeth before sliding in. He gives it back, takes, until he has to breathe again.

She growls at him and bites his lip, soothing it with her tongue, then pulls away. "Promise me, Castle. There was new information up there, but you're going to stop. Until I say."

"The new stuff is mostly what I've managed to figure out about the mystery blackmailer. He was calling from DC, specifically, a row of offices adjacent to the Capitol building. Congressmen's offices, Kate-"

"Castle. No more. You don't get to do this alone anymore, but I can't do this with you right now. Do you understand me? I have to find closure outside of this, and I can't do that if I'm mixed up in investigating it."

She's serious. She seriously wants him to drop this; she didn't even blink an eye when he told her the stuff he'd found out. She wants to lay it to rest.

Apparently, his stunned silence isn't enough for her, because she presses into him with her hips, as if he needs incentive. "Castle. No more. I have the remote; you gave this case back to me. No more."

"No more," he agrees quietly.

But he's afraid now of what comes after this.

"There's something else you can investigate," she says quickly, then takes a breath that he can feel pushing against him, she's so close. "How about you investigate this?"

He realizes, belatedly, that she's trying to proposition him. Or something. He lets out a startled laugh and leans down to her mouth, gives her the thorough investigation she's asking for.

She laughs into his mouth, breaks long enough to pant against his cheek, her skin hot and flush against his. He strokes his hands up and down her back, then curls one at her neck, keeping her close.

"I'm sorry," he says finally, because he doesn't know what else to say, and that usually works.

She sighs gently; he feels her fingers on his chin, feathering down his jaw, stroking his ear. "You didn't really do anything wrong. In fact, this is. . .kind of sweet, Castle. I'm touched. But if it's dangerous for me, then it's dangerous for you."

"You're touched?" he says, can't keep out the sly innuendo in his voice.

She hums a little laugh at his neck, rocks against him in a way that makes his knees buckle. Kate laughs out loud and catches him; he manages to recover quickly enough, a hand out to his desk to keep him upright. Her fingers trail down his arm slowly, slide around his wrist, and then insinuate themselves between his hand and the desktop.

He clutches her hand, finds it's all he needs to hold himself up.


	25. December 24: All My Words Come Back

**December 24 - All My Words Come Back to Me**

* * *

><p>It's dark when she rouses, blinking and trying to sit up. Her movement stirs Castle, and he hums, his voice too low for her to make out.<p>

She's on the couch in his study, her body cramped and complaining about the awkward way she's fallen asleep, but there's something pleasant about waking up with her cheek pressed against his shoulder. She checks her watch - one in the morning - and sees she's been asleep for five hours.

Castle isn't awake though. She stands up and stretches, her back popping, rubs her thumbs across her eyelids to get rid of the clumps of mascara, the dried salt, the sleep. The murder board is dark on his wall, and it will stay that way. He could turn it on manually, if he really wanted to, but she doesn't think he will.

It will stay dark. She needs time to-

It will stay dark. The murder board is for another day.

Kate has to go home, unpack, sleep; tomorrow - today - will be busy. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are the worst days for Homicide. A lot of domestic violence, a lot of people who just can't take one more nagging voice. And then the Occupy Wall Street protests have left the police force stretched pretty thin - every time a new one flares up, it's all hands on deck. She could be doing that today as well.

Which means she'll have little time for herself. Or him.

Kate turns to Castle, leans over him, a hand braced on the back of the couch, watching him sleep with his head at a funny angle - surely that hurts - where he's slumped over against the arm.

"Castle."

His lashes flutter. She doesn't think she's ever thought this about a man before, but those lashes, the slack mouth, the hair spiking from his forehead, curling a little at his nape - Castle isn't just handsome, he's endearing. Strange. She wants to kiss him and she wants to mother him, all at the same time.

For half a second, she sees the little boy he was, and she wants-

Not tonight.

"Castle," she murmurs, keeping her voice pitched low. They had a strange afternoon yesterday, the television on but neither of them really watching, hands tangled together but not close, Alexis coming in and out and finally staying, animating them with her conversation.

She was glad Alexis was there. This murder board, that conversation, it shifted something in him. And maybe, yes, it was in response to something in her, but she doesn't know what yet. She doesn't want to know; she wants to ignore it. She wants nothing to have changed, but everything was awkward, everything was trying too hard.

"Castle," she says a little louder. He startles up, then winces and claps a hand to his neck, opening his eyes.

"Kate. Hi."

Endearing. It is. He is. She sighs because she knows she's sunk - he's got her - leans in and kisses him gently, slowly, because she told herself not tonight but he found a way around that too. And she doesn't mind.

"I have to go," she says softly. "And today is going to be crazy busy-"

"I'll be there by-"

"No." She rubs her thumb over his lips, lifts her eyes back to his. "No, Castle. It's Christmas Eve. You stay here with your family."

"But you're my family too."

She bites her lip and swallows hard, still leaning over him on the couch, a knee on the cushion to keep her balance, a hand braced beside his head. His hand comes up to curl around her neck and pull her down.

She keeps the kiss light, soft, won't let him get very far because she does have to go. She has to.

Finally she answers him. "I know, Castle. But stay here. I'll come by later."

"Home," he says, his eyes still lazy with sleep. "You'll come home later."

Her breath catches, but she can't say no. "I will."

"Good," he murmurs and starts to shift like he's going to lie down on the couch.

"Hey, Castle. Don't stay out here. Go on in to bed." She stops his descent with a hand, tugs on the back of his neck to get him upright.

Castle sighs and stands, his hands coming to her waist then sliding around to hug her, to drape all over her. "You gonna tuck me in?"

She huffs out a breath and starts guiding him towards his room, pushing him ahead of her. "Just get going."

On the threshold, he tugs his sweater up and off, startling her; she waits there, uncertain where to look, and he's working on his jeans, still heading for the bed. Her heart pounds - the man really doesn't have a filter for anything in the morning - and then he's just in his boxers and crawling in under the sheets.

She blinks rapidly, presses her cool hand to her flushed forehead, but the image is there - the long length of his torso, the ripple of skin over muscle as he pulled the sweater over his head, the thick columns of his thighs.

She has to go. To her apartment. Back.

But she's going to miss him today - she can already feel it - and she could just-

tuck him in.

What would it hurt?

Kate moves to the side of the bed, sees his profile in the darkness only because of the shift of shadows. She brushes her fingers through his hair and leans over to kiss the corner of his mouth.

He sighs, his fingers curling loosely against the sheets.

"Love you too, Kate."

She stands there, struck by it, for too long.

* * *

><p>When the phone finally rings, and it's her, finally, finally Kate, he answers a little too earnestly. "Kate-"<p>

"I'm just now getting off," she starts.

Castle runs his hand through his hair and paces his study. "Still. It's not too late." _To come home to me. Please come home_.

"No, Castle. I have stuff I need to do before tomorrow."

"Do it over here."

"I can't."

"What do you need? I'll get it for you."

"I know you would," she says gently. "And I promise, this has nothing to do with yesterday. I have to finish a project."

"What project?" he says, and he knows he sounds petulant, but he hasn't seen her all day. She made him promise to stay home, but all he wants to do is see her. This is the first time today he's even heard her voice, and choppy, distracted texts just don't cut it.

"I'm making you something," she says finally, sighing into his ear over the phone.

"You're. . .making me something?" Castle drops down into his writing chair, stunned, wiped clean of whiny childishness.

"For Christmas."

"Oh, Kate." He's struck by how beautiful that is. That she's making him something. "You don't have to do that. You've given me more than enough."

She chuckles on the other end, but it's not a joke, it's not a line. He's being serious.

"Thank you for the bell," she says quietly, completely changing the subject.

"I guess you know what it means?"

"Hm, well, I'm assuming you're referencing the movie."

"Yeah. Every time a bell rings-"

"An angel gets his wings. Yes."

"It just seemed. . ." Honestly, at the time he made the Advent calendar, it held a different meaning. The day after giving her control of the investigation into her mother's murder, he assumed she'd need reminding that her mother was still with her, that her mother wasn't the collection of evidence on a murder board.

He assumed, back then, that he would need to convince her to stop and rest. To take a break. He assumed, back then, that he would have to fight his way back into her life.

He was wrong. Thank God.

"The bell is for my mom, isn't it?" she says quietly.

He blows out a breath and glances to the dark wall of his study. She didn't need convincing; she had dropped it of her own volition. And he's not sure what that means. "Yes," he admits.

"I figured."

"Kate. I don't presume to know - okay, not true, I do presume to know. That's part of my job, presuming to know. But-"

"Castle," she interrupts him. "It's very thoughtful. Everything you've given me has been thoughtful. That's what-" She stops and sighs. "-what I love about it."

His chest warms with that word, so close to where he wants it - sentence structure-wise. If only the pronoun were different.

"Castle?"

"I'm here."

"I'll come by tomorrow, after work. We'll be slammed, like we were today, so it might be late-"

"That's okay. Any time, I don't care. Just come home." He clears his throat and winces. "Ah. To my home. I mean. Did I say home? I meant here. Come here."

"I know what you meant." She pauses for a moment, and he knows exactly what she's thinking - knows it by the silence and the way it feels - she's thinking: _Hitched._

"Yeah. My mouth runs away with me. That's nothing new," he says tiredly.

She laughs lightly down the line. He smiles again.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Castle."

"Merry Christmas Eve, Kate."

She hangs up and he's entirely unsatisfied. Something shifted yesterday, something altered them, and he can't put his finger on what. If he could figure it out, then maybe he could fix it.

It's not even her; that's the thing. It's not her. And it's not him either. He still loves her, loves her more now than when he started Advent, if that's even possible.

It's whatever this is between them, the reciprocal thing. The flow of their relationship has been redirected, the channel altered, so that wherever it is they're going - he can't see it ahead of him any longer.

He doesn't know how this ends. And by the time he's this close to the last chapter of a story, he always knows the end.

Not knowing doesn't sit well with him.


	26. December 25: Since I Found You

**December 25 - Since I Found You, I Found a Queen; Now I Am Warm**

* * *

><p>"Where's Kate?" Alexis asks him.<p>

Sitting on the couch in the living room while his daughter tries on her new clothes upstairs, Castle lifts his head up and smiles at her as she comes down. "At work."

"Is she going to come over here?"

"I hope so." Honestly, she said she would yesterday and she didn't. But she needed to work on something. So-

"I have a - I mean, I got her a Christmas present. Do you think that's okay?"

His daughter's shining hair, her concerned eyes - God, she's a great kid. Castle gets to his feet and meets her at the bottom of the stairs, wrapping her in a hug. "That's sweet of you, Alexis."

"It's not anything big," Alexis shrugs beneath his arms.

He releases her, then leans forward to plant a loud kiss on her cheek. "You're a good kid."

"Uh, thanks," she says, rolling her eyes at him. "And thanks for Christmas."

His mother calls out from Alexis's room. "Hurry up, darling, I have a show to get to-"

"A show?" Castle mouths.

Alexis makes a face and shrugs. "Coming!" she calls back up the stairs.

"All right, go finish your fashion show."

"I'm probably going over to Lauren's later tonight, so if I leave her present with you, can you give it to her?"

He smiles at Alexis, his thoughtful and helpful daughter. He's spent a lot of this month neglecting her, but she hasn't seemed to mind. "Of course."

She pivots on the last step, then halts, turns back to him. "Dad."

"Yeah?"

"Are you and Kate. . .going somewhere?"

"I think we're just going to stay here-"

She laughs at him and shakes her head. "No. I mean. Are you. . .together?"

Are they together? He can't exactly explain-

"Because she's been kissing you, and you've been holding hands, and - and I'm really glad, but you don't look so. . .happy."

Castle scrubs a hand down his face. "I'm not unhappy. I'm waiting." He doesn't even know where that answer came from. "I think there are still some things we've got to get through before. . .before it's settled."

"Dad?" Her hesitance to intrude is cute, really, but he wishes he could find a way to explain it to her that doesn't sound so inane. "Dad, I've seen Kate a lot this past week, this whole month actually, and maybe you don't see it, maybe you're too close, but I don't think Kate is waiting."

He lifts an eyebrow at his daughter, running through the possible ramifications of what that means. "What does that mean?"

She shrugs, takes one step back up the stairs. "She doesn't look like she's waiting. She looks like she's. . .going for it."

As Alexis disappears back up the stairs, his heart pounds.

Is *that* what's going on? Kate is diving in?

* * *

><p>The moment she arrives at his place, he's like a dragonfly, hovering over her, darting here and there, excited and nervous at the same time. She pushes him away, drops her stuff in the entryway floor, then sighs and puts him out of his misery, dragging him over to the living room couch and handing him the first part of his Christmas gift.<p>

Castle stares at it a moment, then his eyebrows knit together as he pulls the ragged yellow notebook from the gift bag. "What is this?"

"Part One of your Christmas present. My writing-prompt journal from ninth grade English class."

"Oh? Part one, hmm." He immediately flips it open to the one she marked, but he's still looking at her like he needs permission. She nods and he glances down. "The prompt for February 3 is-"

"Just read it," she says, and she means, _to yourself_. But of course, he doesn't.

"'My favorite place in the whole world is - inside a book, because even if everything doesn't have a happy ending, you know it can eventually." He looks up at her, but she's not sure she can do this if he's going to be looking at her. Like that. He drops his eyes back to the page and continues silently.

She remembers acutely how it goes - the grammar mistakes and all. _When I'm inside a book, the author is my friend, guiding me to all these magical things: characters with such amazing love, the adventure and the heartache and the victories. I love the way a story goes exactly right, all because the author knew, somehow, just how it should go, how it would be best to read, how my heart would need to see those things written down in words. The best place in the world is inside a book because this is where he tells me I'm not alone._

"Oh, God, Kate." She watches his hands caress the words of her fifteen year old self. "Katie," he murmurs, as if he could talk to that girl who thought she knew everything but was four years away from knowing the worst, knowing nothing.

She clears her throat. "You can read the others if you want, or not. I just wanted you to read that one. From before-" She shrugs and squeezes her lips together to hold it in, hold it back. She has to get through this.

"From before?"

She nods, watches his hands on the journal, the cardboard cover creased from being bent at one point, the neon green price sticker still on the front. "From before my mom died. Before the wall."

"Oh," he breathes, and one of his hands reaches out for her. She feels him squeeze her fingers, but she's trying to get all the way through this. "I'll read them all."

She jerks her head up, a little surprised by the vehemence in his voice. His eyes are burning into hers. "Okay."

He nods, as if that settles it. "You said Part One."

She finds a little grin is flirting with her lips and she lets him see it. It's because of him anyway - his childish enthusiasm. "I did. Let me get the final part."

She goes to the foyer and picks up the box she wrapped last night, takes a moment to step out of her heels. She heads back to the couch with the box, sits down beside him again, her knee drawn up.

"Here. Oh, I forgot to say Merry Christmas."

"Something else you forgot." He grins back at her, but doesn't take the box. Instead he leans in closer and brushes his hand down her neck, waiting a moment for a reason she can't detect, before he kisses her softly. He tastes like chocolate and peanuts and coffee; his mouth is warm, wet, attentive. She forgets the gift, forgets why she's so tired, feels him close and his mouth on hers, the slide of lips and the touch of his tongue.

His thumb brushes up her throat and she shivers; he pulls back and takes the box now laying between them.

She lets out a soft sigh and watches him decimate the paper, pop open the box. He's left her journal in his lap and he lifts out the book, drops the box to the floor at his feet, lays the book in his lap as well.

"This is mine," he says, surprise lacing his voice. "It's. . .burned."

She sighs. "I couldn't get rid of it. Even though it was damaged." _In the explosion_ goes unsaid, but she can tell he knows.

"This was yours."

She nods.

He moves to open it and she stays his hand, her fingers pressing into his. "Be careful. The pages crumble."

He laughs a little at that, grins at her. "That's. . .there's some kind of symbolism to this that I don't really want to think about. My words crumble?"

She bites her bottom lip and shakes her head. "Just do it carefully."

He opens his mouth for a lewd comment - she's sure of it - but she narrows her eyes at him and he lets the moment pass, choosing instead to focus on the book.

Smart man.

The dust jacket is gone - she had to throw it away because the cover got chemical damage from the fire suppression, and it stuck to the hardback. She had to scrape it off in some places. He gave her all new Castle books from his own collection, but she kept this one despite its damage.

"I signed this," he says softly, sounding incredulous.

"I stood in line."

"You did not."

She grins back at him, suddenly pleased with herself for thinking of this. "I did. Your. . .handler didn't want you to sign it, because you were there for the new book, but you signed mine anyway."

He laughs and rubs a hand lightly over the title page. "I don't. . .I know that's happened before. But I don't remember this."

"I know," she shrugs. "Why should you?"

He swivels his head to look at her. "I should always remember you."

Kate blinks back the rush of moisture to her eyes and gives him a soft smile instead. His fingers lace through hers on the couch; it feels good, settling.

"When was it?"

"Um, 2006. I just made detective working Vice; they were transitioning me to Homicide."

She can tell he's thinking back; it wasn't that long ago, really. He sighs and shakes his head. "What bookstore?"

"Borders," she says on a shrug. "Don't worry about it. I don't need you to remember me."

He sighs back at her, starts rifling through the pages carefully, as if it will give him a clue, nudge his memory. She waits, because there's more, and then he finds it, his fingers halting the flip of pages to rest on the letter she included.

"What is this?"

"Royce left me a letter. It was on him when they found his body."

"Kate." His voice sounds raw, and his eyes are intent on hers. He seems to be saying _this is too much_.

But she has a hard time saying things, and while actions do speak louder than words, she thinks it's time to start giving him words too. So she's giving him all the words she has. And hopefully, it will make it easier to say the words she wants to say herself.

"Why are you giving me this?" he says.

"Read it."

But his eyes won't leave hers.

She tries to put as much conviction in her gaze as she can, and it must work, because he finally glances down to the letter in his hand. She knows when he gets to the part that is really meant for him because his eyes flicker back up to hers for half a second, before being drawn back: _It's clear that you and Castle have something real. And you're fighting it. But trust me. Putting the job ahead of your heart is a mistake. Risking our hearts is why we're alive. The last thing you want is to look back on your life and wonder - if only._

When his head lifts again, she takes a long breath and steels herself. "Castle."

The letter is vibrating in his hand, like he's trembling.

"Castle, I don't want to wonder."

* * *

><p>He was wrong. He was wrong because that is probably the most - the best thing she's ever said to him, and he was pretty sure that spot would be reserved for those three little words. But that-<p>

_I don't want to wonder._

He slides his hand through her hair to grasp her neck, pulls Kate into him for the most grateful, hottest kiss he can manage. He feels her breath hitch as their tongues meet, her chest pressing against his as she pushes him back into the couch.

He pulls her away, makes her wait for a moment, because he can't not say this anymore. He can't keep holding it back-

"Kate, Kate, I'm in love with you."

Her fingers brush across his lips, her eyes fill with that same mix of longing and hope he remembers from the cemetery, only without the pain, thank God-

"I know. You told me yesterday morning," she says, her lips drawing up into a little secret smile.

"I. . .did?"

Then the smile drops off her face. "And you told me - before that."

More night mutterings? Jeez, he can't keep any secrets around her-

"When I was shot."

His hands clench at her waist. A cold rain washes through his body. She's known. She knew and she-

She-

_All summer._

He swallows hard, focuses on the woman sitting practically in his lap - if not for the Christmas presents still there - focuses on breathing - focuses on the way her fingers are stroking his cheeks.

Focuses on breathing. Breathe.

Her arm hooks around his neck and she presses her body against his, their cheeks together; he feels the hitch of her breath against the irregular beat of his heart, and it's this that pulls him through.

"Don't cry," he murmurs, wrapping his arms around her. "Kate."

"I'm not; I won't. I want to say it back-"

"Kate," he squeezes her harder because he doesn't need her to say it. He doesn't need it at all; she's given him wide open access to her heart lately and it's enough.

"We've made a lot of progress in only 25 days, Kate." He brushes his mouth against her jaw. "This is good. This is enough."

"It's not," she cries back, but at least the tears have stopped. If they ever really fell. "I want to say it back but not now. Not when I've hurt you. I wanted this to go differently."

"I'm not hurt," he denies. Denial. Ignore it. It doesn't hurt. She doesn't need to say it back.

"Castle," she moans at him, but her face is still against his cheek, her arms tight around him. He shifts the presents off his knees, takes her thigh and pulls her across his lap. Much better.

"How can I be hurt? Here you are," he says softly, a hand at her back, a hand on her thigh. He has a hand on her thigh. That's good medicine. He flutters his fingers so she knows what he's talking about.

Kate gives a soft little laugh, breathy and light. "Here I am in your lap? Nice. And it only took me twenty-five days. What might happen in another twenty-five days? Second base?"

He grins back, knows she can feel the curve of his lips against her skin. "Kate. If this is what it gets me, I'll make advent calendar for you to open for the rest of our lives."

"The rest of our lives," she repeats.

He's not even going to backpedal on that one. "You heard me."

"I heard you," she whispers, and he's thrown back to that again, back to the ache that splits his ribs like an axe blade to his sternum.

He sucks in a breath, filling his lungs, a way to prove to himself that the ache is imagined. It's not real. He tangles his fingers in the hair at the nape of her neck, because he can. Because he can. Not only does she let him, she wants him to.

"But do you hear me?" she asks, tugging back, putting distance between them. She sits back beside him, but her legs are thrown over his, his hand still at her neck, and really, there's not all that much distance. "Castle. Do you hear me?"

"Uh-"

She leans in, a kiss to his mouth that she stops just as it's getting good. "My Christmas gift to you."

_ I don't want to wonder._

"I hear you, Kate."

"Then you know. All that's left is to say it."

Okay, maybe it's because his hand still rests on her thigh, maybe it's the brittle ache in his chest, but he's apparently not following this labyrinth of hers. What is he supposed to know?

"Rick."

He tears his gaze from where his hand is on her thigh, startled by the sound of his name in that voice, meets her eyes.

"I want you to know. I want to tell you."

"Okay."

She draws her legs back only to sit on her knees, her hands cradling his face, her body leaning in towards his.

"I had a plan for this. But you kinda jumped in ahead of me there, Castle. Overeager, as always. But you have to know-"

* * *

><p>Kate pauses, tasting the words on her tongue.<p>

Sigh. This man. It would've gone so differently, less pain, if he'd let her say it according to the plan. Still-

"I love you."

* * *

><p><em>"Kate."<em>


	27. December 31: Don't Let Me Into This Year

**Due to the massive length - I've broken this up into two chapters: New Year's Eve and New Year's Day**

* * *

><p><strong>December 31 - Don't Let Me Into This Year With an Empty Heart<strong>

* * *

><p>He's so annoying.<p>

"Castle. Go sit down."

Kate waits until he meekly heads to the chair in her living room (the one that gives him a perfect view into her bedroom as well), then she resumes packing. It's not like they'll be there that long - Kate only got three days off - but the decisions seem infinitely harder than if they'll be gone for a week.

Probably because they'll be gone together.

She still gets a little breathless when she starts thinking about it.

"But you didn't let me shop for a dress-" he starts.

"That's because of this right here," she shoots back, stepping into the doorway so she can see him. Kate waits until he slumps his shoulders and sits back before she heads for the top drawer of her dresser.

Underwear. Even her stupid underwear is a decision of epic proportions. She wants to kick Castle out and get Lanie in here to freaking *help* her, but-

Okay. Well. Maybe she should ask Castle. See what that does to him.

Because this is the closest he's even been to her underwear in the past week. Not that she didn't want to - or that he didn't - but they've been going slowly. Slow is good. Slow keeps her from darting away like a spooked horse. Or a fish in a stream. Or-

Ug. Enough. _Man up, Beckett._

Only two days' worth of underwear. She knows what she can and can't wear under that dress, so that's easy enough, but there's tomorrow at the hotel before the premiere and then Monday when they have to leave.

"Castle."

"Yep?"

"Come here."

"Okay," he says, and he's already clearing the threshold and heading for her. Kate has to force herself not to take a step back, in the other direction. But she stands her ground.

It would be really nice if he kissed her right now. Distracted her a little. The way he touches her; everything settles down. Her heart rate kicks up, sure, but the world goes away. The worries. It's like a cone of silence descends over them.

_Hey, Castle, I'm making Maxwell Smart jokes about us. You'd be so proud._

"What's that grin for?" he asks, grinning back.

She bites her lip and eyes her underwear drawer. "I need help deciding what to wear."

His face grows a little distant. "Uh-"

"Oh come on, you obviously take pride in your appearance, Castle-"

"Is that an ass-backwards way of saying I'm ruggedly handsome?"

"No," she snorts, but she knows she's got one of those unavoidable, irrepressible smiles betraying her. "It's my way of saying you pay entirely too much for those dress shirts that only get crime scene stained. Also? You know silk boxers when you see them, and exorbitantly over-priced handbags. And-"

"Okay, okay. I'm a style maven. What are we deciding?"

"This," she says, and gestures to her half-open top drawer.

Castle leans in to look and she gets the chance to see his face go white. Oh, oh, that was lovely. She needed that. If they're both nervous, then they're even.

"That's so not right," he mutters, closing his eyes, then yelping and opening them again. "Do you know what dirty things you've put in my head?"

"I have some idea," she says back, smiling wickedly at him. Because she can. Because - because he loves her. "If it's half of what's in *my* head-"

"You asked for it," he growls, and catches her by the neck with one hand, his other quickly spanning her waist, stilling her in front of him, eyes narrowed.

She waits, a little breathless already, blinks slowly at him as he stares at her mouth. She loves that look. How she has him. How he can't think of anything other than-

She startles when he darts forward, claims her kiss with a ruthless crush of his mouth over hers. She wraps her arms at his waist, lets her palms slide up his warm back. He keeps a careful distance between their hips - whether automatically or purposefully, she doesn't know - but she quickly realizes she's pushed him too far.

She knows better. He's trying to be such a gentleman, trying to be good and not rush things, trying to let them revel in each step forward. And it's good. It is. It's what she needs, most of the time.

But some of the time. . .she needs this. A shove in the right direction. His hot and aggressive mouth over hers.

"Castle." She manages to break free on a gasp for air, finds his ear with her lips. "Don't you want to help me pick out which panties I'm going to wear?"

"Can it be none?"

* * *

><p>He gets to touch her underwear.<p>

It's not on her, not right now, but it will be. Tomorrow. He picked it out.

And she hasn't banished him back to the chair in her living room. He gets to sit on her bed and watch her finish packing.

"Wipe the smirk off your face," she says, but there's a smirk on her face when she says it, so Castle knows he's okay. She's stuffing the underwear into her bag.

"I picked out your underwear," he says, because he can't help it. He knows the meaning of the word _giddy_ and he likes it. He wears giddy well.

She turns and heads for the bathroom. "I was just trying to make up for that night spent in my room-"

He lifts an eyebrow, not following, and then he gets it. Sleeping not more than three feet away from her underwear drawer in her room at her father's cabin. "I appreciate your thoughtfulness. That's what I like about you. Always thinking of others."

Castle watches her bring a fistful of make-up towards the bed, but she's regarding him with that smile he's come to so thoroughly enjoy lately - _cat ate the canary_ is what he might label this one, on his Kate Beckett Smile Meter.

"What you like about me?" she murmurs, and a solitary eyebrow lifts. She turns away from the bed to head back to the bathroom, calling over her shoulder. "And here I thought you loved me."

Well that does it. She can't just say something so smug and walk away like it's not the biggest, most massive sea change in the history of the world's revolutionary events-

"Beckett," he growls, getting quickly to his feet. He sees the hitch in her step, but she doesn't turn around. And then he's at her back, wrapping his arms around her, one at her chest, the other around her waist, his mouth at her neck, doing more in this one embrace than they have all week, bringing her hips back against his, his legs braced wide for a good fit, and relishing the ragged noise that comes out of her mouth.

"Ca-stle."

"You can't just drop that word around like it takes so little effort," he says, licking the jumping tendon at her neck before nibbling at it with his teeth. Her body sags against his, her hands coming back to grip his thighs as he leaves a hot, wet kiss against her skin, traveling up to her ear. "I fought long and hard to hear that and you can't-"

"I love you," she says, the words on an inhale, and that's better, that's her voice thin and reedy and hesitant, as if both apology and wonder in the same breath.

"Yeah, you do," he replies to that, holding her pressed tight against him for just a moment longer, then releasing her. She shivers, but doesn't turn around. She takes a step forward, puts a hand out to the wall, keeps going for the bathroom and to finish packing.

And watching her need to steady herself is almost as good as the _I love you_. Almost.

* * *

><p>She stays in the bathroom longer than she should, but she has to sink down onto the lid of the toilet seat and press her hands against her face to recover.<p>

He just reminded her - very clearly - that he can still be pushed too far. That humor covers a multitude of sins, but he's still so in love with her that it can be too much.

Kate swallows and lifts her head, searches the room blankly for whatever it was she came back in here for. Oh right. Toiletries. The shower travel bag. What else?

What else? Damn, she's having trouble getting back on track.

She loves him too. But they still tread lightly, careful not to break this. Together, yes, together, but they take such shuffling steps.

That back there in the hallway - oh wow - not a shuffle. Not. . .not anything other than the absolute, hard proof. And her reaction, strangled and dragged from her, hopefully told him the same.

More words are needed. She's been pulling them up out of her all week, as best she can, when they come - blindsiding him with words - but she knows they are few and far between. Still. At least he knows the value of them.

Kate gets back to her feet, begins collecting the rest of her stuff, everything else she will need for two nights in LA, and comes back out to her bedroom. And Castle.

Castle. This is Castle, so of course he's looking at her hesitantly now, a little ashamed but rebellious, mutinous just the same, cute little boy who will take the consequences standing up. Kate zips up the travel bag and drops it in the duffle, then sits on the bed, takes his hand to tug him down beside her.

He squeezes her fingers and sits, and she notices that he has his phone out, the screen just flashing dark when she looks. "Who's that?"

"Um. Good news." He laughs a little, not sounding convinced, and clears his throat.

She strokes her finger across his palm, her thumb along his wrist. "What?"

"Alexis is in California visiting her mom, you know that-"

"Castle." Hurry up with it. She likes a good story, but she doesn't like prolonging an unhappy ending.

"Meredith and Alexis are both coming to the premiere. Alexis couldn't shake her."

"Okay." Kate shrugs, waits for more, sliding her fingers along his open hand on her thigh, back and forth, hypnotic in its slow glide of skin.

He stutters on a breath. "Okay?"

Kate stands, senses where some of the issue must lie, untangles her fingers from his suddenly clutching hand. "Did I show you what your daughter gave me for Christmas?"

He lifts his head to look at her, confusion flickering in his eyes.

"Uh. No."

She lifts a finger. "Wait one second." Kate heads back out of her room for the kitchen, glad to have this opportunity to show him, glad to have the words to say it as well. Both actions and words, two-for-one deal. Doesn't happen often for Kate Beckett when it comes to Rick Castle.

She grins to herself and opens the cabinet next to her fridge, goes up on tiptoe to reach into the very back of the top shelf. She left it in the cute little box Alexis wrapped it in. It's a simple thing to carry it back into her room and hand it to him.

Castle holds the box with both hands, staring down at it, then lifts his eyes to look at her, lips quirking. "Almond filling?"

Kate grins, bites her bottom lip. She's just - there are so many ways to go with this. So many clever word plays, so many hidden meanings. Twinkies versus Christmas cookies. But she sticks to the one she got from it first, when she opened it. "I think Alexis invited me over for next year's cookie tradition. Or invited you guys over here. Either one."

Castle laughs, moves one hand to touch the top of a can. "But I liked running out and getting almond filling for you. Twice."

"Well now that we know it takes four cans - you don't have to go anywhere." She sits down next to him on the bed again, nudges his knee with hers. "I liked having you there more than having you leave."

She's startled by the soft lips at her cheek, the smile she feels there. But it's good. They're back to an even keel again.

"Thank you for including my daughter in your Christmas tradition. I don't know if I said that-"

"You did," she murmurs back, turning her head and finding his eyes level with hers, so close, the light in her bedroom dimming already as the sun began to fade early in winter.

"Is this your way of telling me that you don't mind that Meredith is going to be at the premiere?"

"Yes, it's my way," she agrees. "Castle. . .how can I be even remotely threatened by Meredith?" Twinkies versus cookies. No contest.

He seems to pick up on it, because he brushes a hand across her cheek, pauses at her lips. "Good. Because you know I don't do stupid and crazy any more."

She grins - he just set himself up too perfectly not to take advantage of that one. "Oh, you do stupid plenty. And crazy a time or two. But at least you're doing this right, smart man."

He laughs, half-groaning, curls his fingers around her neck and tugs her into him. Instead of kissing her though, he slides the box of almond filling off his lap and puts both arms around her, cradling her. Like something precious. She closes her eyes against his chest, wraps an arm around his waist as well.

And somewhere in the lizard part of her brain, the baser part, she feels selfishly proud that he is hers, that Meredith - amazing-sex Meredith - can't hold him, that Alexis - even Alexis - puts up with the woman because she's her mother, but wants to make cookies with Kate next year.

And she knows that's beneath her, and so not right, but she still feels it.

* * *

><p>Castle carries her bags out of the apartment; he's proud of that. He texted the driver, so the car has already been brought around to the front of her building when he reaches the sidewalk, Kate a step behind him.<p>

The other thing he got to do? He got to lock up her apartment with her spare key - the one he took from her desk drawer at the precinct and used to get into her place with the Advent calendar back in November.

The same key she watched him use as he pushed her to one side (gently, of course) so that he could do it himself. The key that - this time - she didn't ask for him to give back.

Yeah. He's so in.

She's got her hand at his back as the driver takes her bags and loads them into the trunk - duffle bag, garment bag, and a small carryon which could actually be her purse, he's not sure - and when he opens the back passenger door, she trails that hand around his waist and gets in ahead of him.

She knows how to tease. She always has, but now she's doing it with her touch too.

He could get used to - wait, no. He'll never get used to it.

In the car on the way to the airport, she sits on her side and he on his, the muted tones of sunset behind an overcast sky washing over her face. But she does that highly distracting thing she's been doing lately, laying her hand over his and then drawing her fingertips down his fingers to gather in the middle of his palm, like she's petting him, stroking him, collecting cobwebs from his skin.

A lazy and free-floating arousal comes over him in waves, washing clean every other thought until the only thing in his head is the way her nails catch on his palm, the way the heel of her hand lays against his wrist, the rhythmic lull of her touch as if she wants to charm him.

He's charmed.

At the airport, he gets out first and turns around to help her out, but she's already got both feet on the sidewalk and striding towards him. The thick tumble of her hair, the too-round frames of her sunglasses, the dangling earrings, the grey-green v-neck sweater under the latest in a long line of leather jackets, the dark wash jeans hugging her thighs, the heeled boots - an amalgamation of Beckett and Kate that somehow makes him proud and humbled at the same time.

Proud because this woman is here with him, and humbled because every aspect of herself that she puts on is a revelation, is one more layer to her he didn't know and might never see an end to - the mystery he'll never solve.

(Those earrings - he's seen them once before, a quick run to a strip club, but the amazing black lace thing she was wearing at the time - he didn't see that in her underwear drawer. Too bad.)

"Castle?" she says, and just by that tone, he knows an eyebrow is raised somewhere behind those sunglasses.

He reaches out and takes her hand, leans over and kisses her cheek, bumping into the sunglasses. She huffs a little laugh against his skin; she sounds surprised, maybe caught off guard, and then he withdraws, takes his suitcase by the handle and leads her inside.

She's at his back again when he steps up to the first class desk and checks them in. But even though her fingers hook into the pocket of his coat, she's at his side when they need to see identification, pulling out her driver's license, fingers gone as if they were never there.

Her sunglasses are back in her bag too. The thing that looked like a carryon but might actually be a purse. But Beckett doesn't carry a purse - she's got a clutch sometimes for clubs and poker games and charity balls, and a bag other times, so saying purse sounds wrong. This one is leather, that buttery soft leather than looks well-traveled, something his mother might call a hold-all.

She slides it back on her shoulder and gives him another glance, one of those other looks he's been getting a lot lately too: _You are strange._

In a nice way, but it's clear that both of them are seeing sides to the other one they never expected.

Because - yes - Kate Beckett seems to collect clothing and accessories like a fashionista and then somehow she creates a style that is detective and sexy and bohemian, and - yes - Rick Castle is going to analyze that style, make notes on it, try to take a few mental pictures to later recreate for a novel or a scene or a personal fantasy.

She did say - roundabout - that he could do that.

"Castle," she murmurs, taking his ID back from the lady behind the counter and pressing it into his chest. "Focus."

"Yeah," he says inanely and watches her fingers slip his ID into his shirt pocket.

Yeah. How exactly? When she looks like a model and talks to him in that sexy, quiet voice and asks him to choose her underwear?

She's smirking at him now.

And that helps. That's Beckett. He can handle Beckett (barely).

He takes the tickets from the agent, places his suitcase on the scale beside the counter to let them label everything. He gestures to Kate's duffle bag and she drops it next to his, but she keeps the garment bag that's slung like a laptop case from her other shoulder. Her dress is in there, he assumes, but she hasn't let him see it yet. More mystery.

"Is this all you're checking, Mr. Castle?"

"Guess so," he says, trying to stay on track now. "Thank you."

Kate's hand is at his waist again, her fingers plucking at his plaid shirt for a reason he can't even begin to fathom - she likes it? - and then he takes the sleeve that holds the baggage claim tickets and his receipt, turns to Kate.

"Got your ticket?"

She holds it up; a smile plays around her lips.

"You got my ID," he murmurs, patting his pocket to be sure. "You got yours?"

"Yes, Dad," she laughs.

He sighs at her. She really *is* being a child, messing with him this whole time, teasing him - oh but not teasing like a child.

"Let's go, Kate." He moves to lead them (she really has made an effort to let him go first; he's noticed) to the security checkpoint, but she stops him with a hand at his chest, palm flat. He wonders if she can feel the wild beat of his heart.

"Castle," she says, and there's that strength in her tone again, even as quietly as she speaks. "Are you nervous?"

He nods, tries not to swallow too loudly. "Yes. Very much so."

She smiles again, a gentleness around her eyes that eases the vice in his chest. He didn't even know it was there. "Me too."

Oh.

Castle takes a long breath, reaches up to take her hand from his chest. She threads their fingers together; he ducks his head to kiss her wrist.

"At least we get to be nervous in first class," she says, giving him another smile. He doesn't even know what to call this one - where on the Smile Meter it falls - because it's expectant and hesitant at the same time, and he has no idea how many times he's going to see it.

Maybe a lot.

"They serve champagne in first class," he adds.

She grins this time, sly and wide and wonderful, lips pressed together, her hair softening the angles of her face - a smile he knows, has seen after a bank heist and once after he diffused a bomb. That's a rare one, but a good one. He hopes to see a lot more of those.

Castle squeezes her fingers, nudges her hip. "Let's go then."

This time, he follows her. It's just easier that way.

* * *

><p>Castle sits to one side of the security checkpoint and slides his feet back into his shoes. He took Kate's garment bag to make the process go a little faster but it doesn't seem to have worked. He slides his ticket and ID back into his shirt pocket, watches Kate still at the conveyer belt just past the metal detectors. A smile plays on his face as she gathers her things and walks towards him, her boots and jacket in one hand, her bag in the other, her bare toes curling on the linoleum.<p>

He stands and takes her bag out of her hand to help, twitching his lips at her in askance. "No socks?" She's lost a good three inches; her head tilts back a little to look at him, eyes clever-brown and beautiful.

"Not with these shoes," she says, and tosses her jacket towards the chairs he just vacated. Kate puts a hand on his shoulder and leans down, tugging a boot onto her foot, using him for balance.

He can't resist putting a hand to her side to help, his thumb brushing her ribs. She jerks, stumbling, her eyes startling towards his - and then he remembers.

"Oh, sorry-"

"No," she says, a little breathless. "Just - surprised me."

His hand burns at her side, but he doesn't know whether he should remove it or not, act like it's nothing, like the scar lying below his touch is nothing or-

She darts forward and touches her lips to his, a hummingbird of a kiss, before pulling on her other boot and stepping back. His hand slips from her side, but she catches his fingers and squeezes.

Every step is another tentative brush with a minefield. But at least, as partners, they can help each other avoid the telltale blasting caps.

Kate tugs him down the concourse, her hand still wrapped around his fingers, her eyes, when they catch his, intense and cautious but hopeful. Still hopeful.

* * *

><p>Kate rubs her fingers over the armrest, looking out of the round window in first class. Twilight casts the sky in cerulean as stars glimmer in the deepest parts of space.<p>

Two seats in first class are nice, the champagne will be soothing, but there's something about the distance between them now that closes her off. Like a wall. It's no more than a foot at the most, but she doesn't like it. She doesn't like the aloneness of it, how solitude encroaches on her and makes her doubt herself.

Suddenly, Castle's fingers slip over her knee and squeeze, managing to break the ice around her heart. Kate turns to look at him, clouds clearing from her gaze, his nervous and love-softened eyes regarding her.

"Hey," she says, and watches his hand drift to her cheek, feels the stroke of his fingers. She closes her eyes to the touch, a warmth that spreads heat to her cheeks and down to her chest.

"Hey," he says back softly. Her eyelids slide open when his hand starts to drop; she catches him by the thumb, holds on.

"I needed this," she answers, giving voice to the chilly fog that still lingers whenever she finds herself separate and alone. "Time away."

Castle curls his fingers around hers, brings their hands to his chest; she can feel the pound of his heart against the back of her hand. "I just need you."

Kate unbuckles her seat belt and scoots forward, knees brushing his as she leans over to press her mouth to that sweet corner of his smile. Their hands unclasp; his fingers trail down her sides, curl under her sweater. She presses her palm to the hinge of his jaw, fingertips at his ear, works her lips across his.

At any moment, the flight attendant will come by and tell her to put her seat belt back on; at any moment, turbulence or the snack cart or the in-flight movie will interrupt. But at this moment, at this moment Kate wants to touch him, share his heat, let her heart be seduced by his.

When his tongue breaks the seal of their mouths, her hand clenches his shirt, hanging on, reeling him in. Her knee slips between his; she's nearly out of her seat-

Castle gasps, his cheek moves to lay against hers as he sucks down air; his hands press flat against her sides, attempting to hide the tremble of his fingers, but she feels that too.

Still, his thumbs make circles, sliding over and around her scar, her ribs, her skin. "I love how you touch me," she confesses, unable to stop the slide of syllables out of her mouth.

He laughs, a short puff of air into her hair, pulls away from her with a last, wet kiss to her lips. "Be good, Kate."

But now she's warm, and buzzing, and she hasn't even had the champagne.

* * *

><p>When the seat belt sign does go off, Kate slides the clasp open and turns to Castle, finds him already looking at her expectantly, wriggling his eyebrows, a leer across his face.<p>

She laughs. "In your dreams, Castle."

He sighs, but then a little eagerness comes back to play around his mouth. "If you're getting up to go to the bathroom, Kate, you could pretend we're in coach and it's a tight squeeze-"

Even as he speaks, Kate's already standing, already using the head of his seat for balance so that her body is canted towards his, her legs brushing his as she does exactly that: pretend they're in coach and the space is so much tighter and she just happens to brush against him provocatively-

"Ah," he sighs, his hand trailing down the back of her knee as she steps into the aisle.

She leans over and drops a quick kiss just under his eye. "You might want to watch me walk away, too, Castle. If you're looking for footage for your dreams."

She hears him suck in his breath as she moves away, can't hide the smirk.

In the tiny lavatory, Kate washes her hands and looks at herself in the mirror. Poorly lit and cramped as it is, she realizes that she looks good. Healthy. Less haunted. Because of him, yes, but because she decided, thirty days ago, to stop being unattainable.

Not that it works all the time. She has to keep reminding herself that the locks and chains don't keep out pain, regardless of what lies she told herself when she was nineteen. What does a grieving nineteen year old know of a love like this? Absolutely nothing. And that girl isn't in charge any more.

Kate - the 32 year old detective who shot her mother's assassin to save him, who was then shot by a different assassin this spring - this woman knows her heart now, knows what it is capable of, how it can survive, what it can do when tested - how it can take a life to save his, how it can come back to life just hanging on to a confession.

So she leaves the bathroom and comes back down the aisle towards the man who spent twenty-five patient days convincing her heart of this.

When she sits back down, he's looking at her intently, expectation in his face. Of a different kind. How does he know when she has something she wants to say?

"This is where I first read Royce's letter," she gives, presses her hands against the armrests as she watches him.

"Where was I?"

"Asleep, right there," she smiles.

"I missed it."

"You're not missing it now."

He smiles at her, that light and happy thing, delighted or pleased or impressed - she can't tell the difference yet. She'll learn to read him - his smiles and his joyfulness spread across his face - just like he's memorized her. She wants to know more than just the goofy side of his happiness.

"Did you bring that swimsuit?"

Ah, and the goofiness is back. Or rather, maybe she should label this one lecherous. That seems more appropriate. Not a leer, not a smirk, no. He's injected a lot more lust into this look than he usually lets her see. "Not that one."

"A different one?" Both eyebrows up, innocence at the back of his eyes. How does he do that? He can't possibly be thinking innocent thoughts about her in a swimsuit. Maybe it's just curiosity momentarily overwhelming the lust.

"A different one."

"You are so backwards."

She laughs, startled by the comment. "I'm what?"

"You let me-" he lowers his voice and leans in, "-pick out your underwear. But I can't see your dress or your bathing suit?"

"Mm, just another layer, Castle."

"Yeah, but you let me see the layer underneath, so. . ."

She laughs at that, like laughing just that once at his smarmy comments has released the dam, or unsealed the vault, or something - so that now all of it brings the mirth to her lips.

"Well, so far, you're laughing at all my jokes. A guy could get used to this," he says, and while it's lame, and not funny, it's kind of. . .Castle. She likes knowing that.

But this is getting them sidetracked. "Don't you have questions, Castle?"

He opens and closes his mouth, then nods. "I can ask?"

"That's the point, isn't it? Of the gifts and the letter and-"

"Okay," he interrupts. "Were you in love with him."

It's not even a question. Because he's made some conclusion of his own, he just wants her confirmation. She can see that too. And he asked all in a rush because he still thinks she's going to shut him out. She doesn't really like that she knows this.

"That has a complicated answer," she says, taking a breath. She's absurdly grateful when he takes her hand and squeezes her fingers; Kate smiles at him, softly. "I fall hardest for older men."

He takes a laughing breath and grins back at her. "You do, huh?"

"Yeah." She presses her lips together to get past the need to smirk. "So six months ago, maybe my answer was different. Even last year, my answer. . .but whatever I thought I felt for him wasn't like. . .this."

Why is this so hard to say? Maybe it's the astonishment in Castle's eyes.

"Also. He was a father figure, back when my own was. . .still lost."

Some of the amusement fades around his eyes; she's seen this look in him before, when he feels sorry he's even asked, but he still wants to know. Curiosity and compassion at the same time.

"So yes? I was in love with him. And no."

"And no," he repeats, and even though it's not a question, she knows it deserves an answer.

"I was alone in my grief. And he was my. . .training officer." She almost said partner. But that word is reserved for someone else now, and she will never be able to use it again. Not if she's not talking about him. About Castle. "But we never. . ."

"Because he was like a father to you," Castle says, his eyebrows knitting.

"Well, more like he never let me - he never touched me. I kissed him once." She used to be ashamed of it, but she's not anymore. She's glad that she had the guts to even do that much, to step up and ask for it from him, to at least let him know. No regrets on her side of things, even if Royce always wondered. "But he put me off."

"Stupid man," Castle blurts out, and when Kate lifts startled eyes to see him, his face is bright red. He rubs a hand over his mouth like he can erase his last comment.

She can't help the grin that slides along her face, the warmth in her chest at Castle's involuntary defense of her.

"Probably very smart, actually." She shrugs and glances down to the hand still entangled with his. "I was in no condition to start something."

_But I am now._ She knows he hears that unspoken part too, because he eyes grow warm; he squeezes her hand.

"Thank you for telling me." Castle releases her hand, as if giving it back to her. "And the letter. I don't. . ."

"It's okay, Castle." What it is that's okay, she's not sure, just that she doesn't want him to think it means more to her than it does. It's Royce's last letter to her, sure, but it was also his way of reminding her that she used to have guts, that she had once offered herself to a man she loved and been rejected, but that it was better to know than to always be left wondering.

She doesn't have to wonder about Castle. It's all there in his face, the way he loves her.

* * *

><p>Kate stands in the sitting room of the penthouse suite at the Luxe, the suitcases and bags being unloaded around her, Castle tipping the bellman, the concierge discreetly inquiring, the thing unfolding behind her.<p>

It's not the same hotel, but it's the same idea. Or no. It's not the same idea either, even if the suite of rooms has the same layout - two bedrooms, vast living area between, modern and sophisticated. Same layout, different furnishings.

Is this what they are? Just different furnishings. . .

She feels Castle at her back as the door shuts behind them. A brush of his fingers at the lumbar curve, the feeling travels like electricity along her spine, flaring in her pelvis and clavicles. He affects her in her bones.

"Is this - okay?" he says.

She doesn't want to admit that it means so much to be in a different hotel with two bedrooms. "It's beautiful," she says instead, and even that says too much.

Castle's hand travels up to her neck and before she can even move, his mouth is begging at the door of her lips. Kate opens to him, invites him in, feels the lazy and warm way his kiss takes from her, unhurried and unashamed. Her fingers curl at his hips as she sees, behind her closed lids, all the ways Castle has made this special and different and just for her.

He leaves her wanting, his mouth curling away into a smile as he drops little touches of his lips to the line of her jaw, the mark at her cheek, the corner of her eye.

"Kate." He steps back and she realizes she's at the door of her bedroom, his hand sliding off her waist. "No plans for tomorrow until three. I have to do some press stuff, and you can come if you want, or hang out, or shop or - I don't know-"

She reaches out and steps forward, coming closer because he's nervous again. And she's not anymore. "Where is this at?"

"Ah, Grauman's. On Hollywood Boulevard. Should be - ah, actually, I'm expecting it to be a little over the top."

Kate grins, watching the way it plays out on his face, the anxious need for approval. "I can go with you."

A trickle of relief behind his eyes, the quirk of his eyebrow to cover it. "Yeah? Yeah. Okay, good. Well-"

It's late. He's right. And while she wants nothing more than to open her eyes in the morning and see him next to her in the California sunlight, she's also certain that might be slightly unfair to them both at this point. On New Year's Eve. Too much pressure, too loaded a night.

She'll just sneak in and wake him up in the morning, like she wanted to do earlier this spring and didn't, pushed the thought away and ordered a white board instead, let the case take over her nervous energy.

Not this time.

"Good night, Castle. Happy New Year." She finds herself lifting up on her toes to kiss him, even though her heels put her even with him. Her nose bumps his; he laughs and lets her adjust them, her hand at the back of his neck.

She tries to keep it light, soft, working at his bottom lip - but she loves the wide slash of his smile that thins out to the scratch of stubble and the dimpling of his cheek, his chin, the slope of his cheekbone-

"Kate," he breathes, and she hears the cracking of his self-control, stops.

"Mm," she murmurs, feels the heat in her cheeks, her chest, feels her fingers digging into his shoulder, his neck. She has a strange need to apologize, but won't.

"Good night, Kate," he says finally, and fumbles at her waist to turn the knob to her room. "Happy New Year."

Her back is against the door, and she didn't even realize. She didn't feel it happen. She goes inside, leaves him out there, but he's the one who shuts the door after her.

Heart druggedly thumping, Kate turns and surveys the room, leans back against the door with a sense of deja vu. She runs a hand through her hair, tilts her head back, tries to will away the craving to yank open the door and get it over with.

That's not right, not how it needs to be. It's not something to get over quickly, not someone she needs to get out of her system.

Kate is in love with him. And it will come.


	28. January 1: Don't Let Me Into This Year 2

**Epilogue 2 of 2**

* * *

><p><strong>January 1 - Don't Let Me Into This Year With An Empty Heart<strong>

* * *

><p>His mouth is dry; his body indistinguishable from the bed, the warmth, the heaviness, the skin.<p>

The skin?

Something stirs. Memory or warning. His eyes flicker open, at once overcome and squinting against sunlight. He's pretty sure he closed the curtains last night, and that isn't his skin-

"Kate," he groans, wincing.

She chuckles or hums, her shadow falling across his face as she moves, and then his eyes flare open when the bedcovers are pulled away.

She's getting in with him. "Kate?"

"It's only seven," she murmurs, and her toes are cold against his shin, his calf. He twists so that he's lying on his side, blinking at her. The sun forms a nimbus around her body, an aura of golden light against the chestnut fall of her hair, the rich pelt of her eyes.

"Only seven," he repeats, trying to find reason or sense in any of this.

Kate slid into bed with him.

"Happy New Year," she says.

That doesn't explain anything, but his brain is giving up on him. He slides his arm around her back and pulls her in, unthinkingly, nestles her against him, warm and sleepy as he is, draping over her.

He figures it out after a moment: she's not resisting, not really, but her body doesn't melt down into the mattress either, doesn't conform to his. And he realizes parts of him are more awake than others, and he laughs, feels the laughter rumbling in his chest, her huff of not-all-that-amused air at his ear.

"Too early for anything but sleep, Kate," he mutters, dropping a sloppy kiss on her cheek but not letting go of her. She was the one who wanted to slip into his room and wake him at seven o'clock on the first day of 2012, she was the one who then got in his bed; he's not letting go. "Happy New Year."

"You're falling back to sleep," she grouses, and he has just enough awareness left to realize she sounds amused as well.

"You're talking too much," he grumbles and fumbles his hand up between them, snags his fingers over her lips, pats her cheek.

Feels good, her warm body half under him, her hair brushing his neck and cheek. Her hand at his shoulder, a leg between his.

He's drifting off again, sinking down into the tumble of thoughtless images when he feels her squirming, adjusting. She's moved away, her knees drawn up between them, a hand curled at his neck, her head on the pillow next to him, and he knows she's watching him, not sleeping, but that's okay. That's good too.

* * *

><p>There's a table of books; his sharpie has a tinge of musk and perfume to it rather than the sharp bite of solvent and marker. He lifts it to his nose, confused, and the line of fans disappears, melts into an arm black against the light, a body, a woman-<p>

"Kate?"

He lifts his head from the pillow and finds he's been sleeping on his stomach, his ribs aching from it, but Kate is sitting up in bed next to him, playing with her phone.

She turns to him, a hand travels to his head, musses his hair, and he swears he'd fall out of bed in shock if he weren't firmly in the center of the mattress.

"Morning. Again."

"Uh. What. What time is it?" She's in his bed. Oh. There was something about cuddling. "I thought I dreamed that. You really did crawl into bed with me this morning?"

She lifts an eyebrow. "Crawl?"

"Poor word choice. Slip?"

"Mm, something like that."

He's not going to push for more because part of what he loves about her is that enigmatic smile, that Mona Lisa poise.

"Time?"

"Nine."

"Respectable. How long have you been awake?"

"Since six."

"You're gonna have to learn how to sleep in," he says gravely, frowning up at her.

She takes and gives it right back. "Or you're gonna have to start getting up early with me."

He turns over to lay on his back, slides his hand up the line of her shin to her knee. She's got both knees up, her back curled against the headboard, her phone cradled in her lap. "What're you doing?"

"Playing Angry Birds on your phone."

"My phone?"

"I took it off mine. Big waste of time."

He laughs and tugs on her knee; she rolls with it, lying down on her side next to him, a grin on her face. The hand around his phone comes up and she uses her finger to tap his forehead, trace down to his nose.

"What're you doing, Kate?"

"Watching you sleep. Beating your high scores. Getting hungry."

He catches her hand, pulls his phone out of her grip, leaves it on the other side of him. She watches him, waiting for his next move maybe, and he drags up some courage and cups her cheek, brushing his thumb over the severe lines of her bone structure.

"Beautiful in the morning," he says, still unable to form coherent thoughts. Or maybe it's just her, just the warmth in her face as she looks at him in his bed, the feeling of her fingers circling around his wrist as if to hold him there.

"Thank you," she says softly, something in her eyes that goes in and out, like a break in the clouds during an overcast day, the sun struggling through. "Can we have breakfast now?"

Castle grins back at her, has to fight the urge to curl around her and take her into himself, deep and forever, planted there, never to leave. She strokes her thumb along the inside of his wrist, raises both eyebrows, clearly looking for an answer.

"Course. Thanks for waiting for me."

"Least I could do," she murmurs. "You waited for me."

_You waited for me._

He moves forward and presses his lips to her the corner of her mouth, unwilling to let that go without something, some acknowledgement. His voice, when he finally finds it, sounds rough.

"Wait's over, Kate."

* * *

><p>When Kate woke on Christmas morning, feeling drugged from staying up late (panicking over what she was going to give Castle for Christmas), she ignored the Advent calendar. For the first time in twenty-four days, she didn't open that window.<p>

She didn't want it to be over, and she also didn't want that last item to affect her, either way. She didn't know what it might be, didn't want to know, and didn't want it to change her before she got a chance to explain to Castle - everything.

She didn't listen to the song either, just in case. She looked up the lyrics online, to check, and even though it was a Christmas song, and Weezer, and really, what harm could there be? - she still didn't listen to it.

She saved it for later.

She had a plan for that evening with him, how it would go, how she would get off work as soon as she could and go over to his apartment and tell him. She wanted to be able to tell him, honestly, without whatever last-ditch effort he made on the 25th to sway her to his side. She wanted to say it to him and then be able to say she'd done it on her own, without needing the shove from Day 25, without needing to be persuaded.

She wanted it to be her own decision - not a reaction to 25 days worth of Castle's. . .courtship.

It didn't go like she planned.

When Kate got home late on Christmas Day - night by that time - she had almost forgotten that she hadn't opened the last window. He hadn't asked about it, and she'd spent so much time trying to make sure she hadn't damaged whatever fragile beginning they'd made that she hadn't given it another thought.

So Kate opened the last Advent window at one in the morning on the twenty-sixth. She found the gift, and the note, and she was glad she hadn't seen it before.

But she knew she wouldn't keep it.

She plans to give it back to him today.

* * *

><p>Kate is holding his hand. Castle likes it - the feel of her sharp bones against his long, thick fingers, the way she squeezes when she wants him to follow her to avoid pedestrians, the bump of her hip when she comes even closer.<p>

They eat breakfast at a place on La Brea; she orders scrambled eggs, wheat toast, and water, and he gets pancakes topped with sliced strawberries. She steals his strawberries, one by one, with her fingers, popping each piece into her mouth quickly before it slips, her tongue pink and darting out to catch the fruit.

He could get used to watching her eat like this. He doesn't even mind that all his strawberries are gone - he just asks the waitress for more while Kate bites her lower lip, evidently just realizing she's eaten them all.

When he gets a huge bowl of them set beside his plate, Castle dumps half of them onto hers, the rest over his pancakes. Mixed with the syrup now, he's fairly certain she won't steal them, but just in case-

"These are mine, those are yours," he says, lifting an eyebrow and pointing with his fork. "Because I love you and you're exceptionally sexy when you slide those into your mouth, I'm willing to let it go. But don't eat my food."

She laughs, presses her lips back together to smother the sound, the grin, tries to look serious or threatening or seductive. He's not sure what look she's going for there. More stern Beckett probably.

"Oh really?"

"Can't mess with a man's food, Beckett. You work with cops; you should know that already."

"I don't want Esposito's food. I want yours," she purrs.

Yeah, purrs. That's all that his brain can label that noise as. Whatever it is coming out of her throat - a bedroom voice so incredible that he reaches under the table and squeezes her knee, a real warning this time, not just messing with her about eating his strawberries.

She smirks.

Fine. She wants to play this game? _You're on._

* * *

><p>She hasn't done anything to deserve this, she thinks, feeling her stomach quiver as his hand travels.<p>

Oh goodness. She's in trouble. After breakfast, they wandered along La Brea window shopping, but the moment he saw the book store, he was leading her over. She wasn't protesting of course, because it's a book store - a used book store - and of course she wants to go inside, but she forgot the unspoken challenge in his eyes during breakfast.

She forgot until he crowded behind her in the poetry section, a cramped alcove at the back, and reached around her for a thick volume. Pretending to read, his jaw against her temple, his other arm around her while he holds up the book.

His left hand is splayed at her waist, a finger hooked in the waistband of her jeans, the others riding up her shirt, their hips not touching but so so close. She can't help but think, _He picked this pair out._ And he's going to find out which one of the two it is she's wearing.

He's murmuring lines into her ear (_the gentle breath of her sighs, she still slays me, how she speaks and how she shines)_. Kate doesn't even know what but it sounds like a reworded Shakespeare, a poet with that strange and ancient diction to their lines. Even though these words don't rhyme, they have the cadence of courtly love.

Castle chuckles against her ear and reads again, "'Now I begin to awaken, and I see it was for the best that she resisted my desire and tempered the burning youthful lusts with a face both sweet and angry.'"

Kate laughs on a breath and shakes her head, stepping back into him to dislodge his hand, break the spell. For a brief moment, she grazes his thigh, feels him tense with restraint. "What in the world are you reading?"

"Yeah, there's the sweet and angry face right there," he laughs and tilts the book so she can see. "Petrarch. Translated into English prose."

"Strange. And - beautiful. Petrarch's muse - she died, didn't she? Too soon."

His face changes; she wishes she had left it alone.

"She did. Laura. She never accepted him-"

"Not true," Kate says quickly. "She was married; she couldn't. And then she died, and-"

"He loved her," Castle says simply, putting the book back on the shelf. "He loved her despite his love being unrequited, forever unreachable-"

"But it made him who he is. It put words to paper," Kate continues, not sure why she's arguing with him over this. "He's the father of the sonnet - he and Shakespeare. She inspired him, that love inspired him."

"Kate," he says, and it's gentle, too gentle, but she doesn't look at him; she stares at the book of verses back on the shelf. Thick. All those words, the hundreds of 'scattered rhymes' Petrarch wrote to Laura, the woman he saw once in a church, hopelessly out of his reach.

"That's not us," she decides, and finally turns, wrapping her arms around him, her cheek to his, convincing him.

"I know."

She steps back, regarding him. "Don't forget it."

His lips twitch. "You either."

* * *

><p>At the hotel, Kate tells him to wait, pushes the door to her bedroom closed. He still hasn't seen her dress.<p>

Castle changes into his suit easily enough, an expensive suit with a shiny charcoal shirt - pinstriped - nothing she hasn't seen him in before. He forgoes a tie to leave it unbuttoned; his neck is too thick for a tie to be comfortable all night and it always looks like he's being strangled.

He waits in the sitting room on the couch, nervous again, and tries to settle down. He clasps his hands together, adjusts his jacket to keep from wrinkling it, pulls out his phone to check the notes his publicist sent over a few hours ago - talking points.

The door behind him clicks open, and he jumps up, turning to look at her.

He can't get much past black dress, deep v, short skirt before the sight of all that skin, the pale pink of her lips, the flush between her breasts captivates his attention.

"I need you to zip me up," she says and turns around.

He hears his phone thump to the floor but doesn't stop to pick it up; instead, he goes straight to her side, the tumble of curling hair down her back, watches her hands gather it together and pull it all over one shoulder.

Thankfully, the dress covers her back, little scalloped sleeves, the ragged edges where the zipper hasn't come together. He can't help put press a kiss to the top of her spine, his hands at her waist, that tight circling material that emphasizes just how narrow her ribs are.

She shivers. "Castle."

Right. Zipper. He grasps the tab and eases it up, a thumb at the base of her spine for leverage. He even remembers to do the little hook at the top, brushes his hand across her neck to let her know it's done.

Kate lets go of her hair as she turns back around; her hand strays to his chest, her eyes seeking his.

"Black," he grits out, hates himself for *that* being the word that finally emerges, shakes his head even though he can see her smirking. "It's shiny."

She laughs, brushes her hand over his collar. "Your shirt is too. We match. Look at that."

He blinks at the dominant and powerful look in her eyes, tries to swallow. "I meant. You look good. Gorgeous, really. Alluring."

"Alluring? Nice word," she murmurs, and he sees she's watching his mouth.

He leans in and brushes his lips over hers, but she pushes on him. "Let me finish getting ready."

But now that he's seen it, he just wants to get her out of it.

Still, she disappears back into her room.

* * *

><p>Grauman's Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard is everything she expected, and also, somehow less. The red carpet unfurls, but they don't get to walk a straight shot from the car service to the street. Instead they wind around, made to stop every few inches for a photograph or an interview, Castle's hand at her back for most of it, people calling for them to turn or smile or try it again.<p>

There's no love here, only commands. Castle has it down to a science, apparently, and she follows his lead, tries to find her center, let it flow out from there - peace and ease and natural grace.

It seems that they're mistaken for celebrities because everyone else around them is somehow famous or almost famous (well, Castle is famous, isn't he?). So just in case, they want her too, call out compliments and teasing lines, ask her to move just to the left, grab his arm, turn around.

It's exhausting.

"You're doing great," he says in her ear at one point, and it jolts her to her toes, the curling rasp of his voice, sincere and real; it gives her an extra edge as she's asked to parade through the confusion of press and people.

She can't help glancing down from time to time, reading the names of legendary movie stars set into concrete blocks, the footprints and handprints of actresses and actors who are mostly long gone. Myrna Loy's message to Sid Grauman, John Wayne's fist, Roy Rogers's gun, hoofprints even, side profiles, legs -

"Look at me, doll; look up, over here."

She jerks her head up, eyebrow raised, but it's more photographers, Castle hustling her down the line, and she realizes this isn't the time to be gawking like a tourist.

A few stations later, she's pulled aside for questions, most of them inane and ridiculous, variations on 'Are you excited about tonight?' that she doesn't try to answer appealingly. Castle is pulled further away from her as he's handed from one magazine reporter to the other, entertainment news interviewers as well.

However, one much older man asks her how she thinks Castle's series will be on the big screen, since most movies lately are remakes from the 80s or a superhero plucked from the pages of a comic book. The reporter looks both bored and entirely too articulate to be covering a press junket.

So to this question, Kate does actually try to answer, giving it a moment's thought and slowly formulating a response. The older man starts paying attention, looking interested again. She doesn't know what all she says, but she finds herself talking about the nature of good and evil at one point and realizes she should close it out, let the man go.

When she turns, Castle is watching her, a look on his face she's seen infrequently but knows anyway. Surprised, proud, a little thrilled - his eyes crinkle and he holds out his elbow for her to tuck her hand under his arm.

"Interesting," he murmurs to her, still smiling. "Nikki Heat as the modern woman's superhero. Who knew you were such a geek?"

"Hm, I thought you already knew," she smirks. "I have managed to read most of your comic book collection."

"Be still my heart," he grins. "Still. You had that reporter eating out of your hand."

"Oh yeah?" She doubts it. But she was focused, at the time, on an interesting weave of complex cultural issues - the lack of diversity in today's entertainment, the flux of a public opinion that seems to always crave homogenous states, and the way those two connect, perhaps, to the decline of society - economically or morally or however one chooses to look at it.

"You're entirely too intelligent for this place," he murmurs, and pauses them in front of another station. She's almost used to the halting walk, the posing, the unnatural feel of holding her smile and changing the angle of her head and presenting herself to the light.

"If I am, then so are you," she says back, under her breath, unable to help darting her eyes to look at him, his smile so open and relaxed. How easy this is for him, how he takes to it naturally. She hopes she looks half as good.

And strangely, she wonders if he's ever had someone real at his side before - to do this with - or if it was more of the likes of Meredith and Parisian models. She can see now, how lonely he must have been, and she raises a hand to his cheek, curling her thumb at his mouth.

It's captured by a dozen more flashes, and she can't seem to care.

Let them all see, let them all know.

* * *

><p>Castle winces when he hears Meredith's voice echo in the lobby, but Kate hasn't lost her pressed lip, welcoming smile - even though he knows from the previous two hours' walk of the red carpet that it's not connected to any true emotion other than, perhaps, irritation or maybe long-suffering.<p>

Meredith doesn't even pause at the sight of Kate, heads straight to Castle for a fearsome and entirely too familiar embrace. Alexis is hugging Kate though, his daughter look regal in navy blue with her hair piled up on her head, her skirt soft around her knees. He's grateful for that, at least; Meredith didn't insist on something inappropriate. Or at least, Alexis won that argument. However it went down.

"Meredith, you remember Kate Beckett," he says, withdrawing from his ex-wife's embrace and touching Kate's back in relief.

She's already extending a hand to Meredith, shaking the other woman's with a grace that looks effortless and completely without cattiness. Honestly, he's so relieved that it's like a weight lifting from his chest; he can breathe again.

Meredith, on the other hand, apparently wants to go for catty. She makes a little pouting face at Castle and says, "Richard." Her body turns toward his, blocking Kate.

"Meredith." A warning and a prayer at the same time. Kate can handle herself; it's Alexis he's worried about.

Thankfully, he sees Kate drawing his daughter ahead of them, walking into the theatre with her, distracting her. God, she's good. She's seriously amazing.

Meredith slides her hand up his chest and grins winningly. "After this, you want to-"

"No. That's done you know. Kate is-"

"Oh, darn. Really? Alexis said something like that. But it's an exclusive thing? Because a quick-"

"Meredith," he sighs. He can't even be mad at her because she doesn't have a deceitful or conniving bone in her body. She's just fluff. Pretty and a little vacant, but with lots of bubbly happiness, and very little responsibility. "It's just me and Kate. All right?"

"Oh, all right," she sighs and separates from him, following Alexis and Kate towards the theatre. "Your sense of decency has always ruined my fun, Richard."

He has to laugh at that - really, *he* was the moral compass in their relationship? - and he walks inside to find Kate standing stunned at the back with Alexis at her side, both of them absorbing the inside of the theatre - it's majestic expanse of gold and red - with much the same look of fascination and close observation.

They are strangely so much alike.

She turns when he approaches, slides her hand into his, their fingers lacing together. "You good?" she murmurs, lifting an eyebrow.

He keeps his voice low as Meredith curls an arm around his daughter. "No problem. Alexis?"

She nods, turns back to the theatre. "So. Where are we all sitting?"

"Mere - uh, Mom - and I are sitting upstairs," Alexis says on a laugh. "We might not see you later either-"

"I'm taking Alexis out to a few places I know," Meredith says with a laugh, sparkling and light. Castle frowns but Alexis gives him a hard look; he keeps his mouth shut.

"Sorry to miss you, Dad," she says, leaning forward to hook her arm around his neck and hug him. He embraces her back, kisses her forehead.

"You look beautiful, Alexis," he murmurs, a little overcome by the way she beams, bright and blossoming, so happy with just a few words from him. Daddy's girl. It makes his chest tight. "And seriously Alexis, don't fall on your sword just for us."

Meredith doesn't seem to get it, but Kate must, because she frowns. "Alexis-"

"I'm not. I'm fine. Seriously. We've got better things to do - and so do you," Alexis grins, but Castle sees the plan hatching in her eyes. She's keeping Meredith away, which is sweet and silly and brave of her, but he wishes she didn't feel the need to do that.

Meredith is already heading for the grand staircase, calling for Alexis over her shoulder even as she flirts with an older man that looks faintly familiar - fellow thespian or director, someone she can work for connections - and Kate nudges him with their joined hands.

"She knows what she's doing. And she'll call if they get into trouble," Kate says.

He sighs and looks over at her. "You sure you still wanna up for this?" It's not really a question; he's being facetious, but she's not laughing.

"I'm sure. This is nothing."

* * *

><p>Castle watches Kate more than the movie.<p>

They had a moment of strange reunion with Natalie Rhodes, who acted like she didn't know them and also like she ought to, and then her handler pulled them aside and explained she was deep in research for a new role. Which didn't quite explain the vacant look in her eyes, but Castle did remember something about drug rehab last spring.

They have good seats, excellent seats, and the theatre isn't as quiet as he expected even though the movie is playing. People chat all around them, phones are out, and it's easy to drop his hand over on Kate's knee and work his way up. Slowly.

She has her eyes resolutely on the screen even as he trails a finger to the impossibly short skirt of her dress, curling under the hem. He slides his finger back and forth under the edge of the material, moving her skirt inexorably higher and higher on her upper thigh.

Her mouth twitches; it's the only clue he gets before she's crushing his hand into her thigh to stop him, his fingers mangled by the strength of her grip. He grins because she's basically pressing him into her, and his pinky is free to move, to slide, to graze ever nearer.

She laces their fingers together deftly, drops her other hand on top of his as if trapping a wild thing in her lap. He vaguely registers the Nikki onscreen as she fights off the man in her apartment, but he feels the heaviness of Kate's hands encapsulating his, the heat of her thighs radiating through the soft satin of her dress.

After awhile, her grip eases, and he feathers his fingers out, ready to try again. But Kate slips a hand towards him, behind the armrest (how? how did she thread her arm through there?) and suddenly her hand is on his thigh, hot and restless.

Oh, he's in trouble.

She's making little circles with her thumb, her fingers curving over his thigh. His whole body quivers, quads clenching.

"Oh, you can dish it out, but you can't take it," she murmurs, just at his ear.

He turns slowly, finds her mouth parted invitingly near his, takes the offer.

Even as he tries to distract her with a kiss, her hand squeezes, starts moving, and he abandons the skin of her knee to trap her hand before it's all over.

Castle pulls back, meets her eyes, accepts the truce in them.

* * *

><p>They walk back to the hotel hand in hand, abandoning the car service and escaping from the crushing throng of photographers and movie people, slipping away from the symbiotic, parasitic relationship being played out behind them.<p>

Kate is waiting for some ideal moment, but she knows it won't come. It will be this or nothing.

She waits until he's distracted by the lights of the Kodak Theatre, releases his hand to open her clutch. She pulls out the gift he left for her behind the window on Christmas day, the little misshapen lump of silver and brass.

Balanced steel-core, tungsten alloy probably. At a guess. She took it to a jeweler's and had it put on a thin black cord.

Her stomach is churning, but there is no right time, no good time for this.

"Castle."

His head turns to her; he stops on the sidewalk, but she doesn't want to do it here either. Her eyes dart around, seeking help-

"Let's get coffee." The suggestion tumbles out of her mouth before she can stop it, but he grins and nods, moves to take her hand but it's in a fist around the gift.

He gives her a confused look. "Kate?"

She heads for the coffee shop ahead of him, puts her clutch under her arm and opens the door - he catches it, holds it for her, following her in. Kate bites her bottom lip and half-turns back to him. "I'll get us a seats."

She'll let him do his job, getting the coffee.

She slips between tables and chairs in the mostly empty coffee house, tries to breathe past the ice clenching around her heart. Finding a worn, soft couch near a window, Kate sits down, hoping he'll sit beside her, but at least there's a chair close by if he-

He sits down beside her. She gives him a smile and drops her clutch, takes the coffee he holds out. Her right hand is still in a fist. "That was fast."

"They're not exactly slammed in here," he says, trying on a smile.

She nods, swallows past the tightening in her throat, trying to get up the courage.

From her peripheral vision, she sees him place his coffee cup on the table in front of them, sit back from her a little. "Hey, just say it. Whatever it is, Kate, it can't be as bad as my overactive imagination-"

"God," she gasps, lifting her eyes to his. "I'm not - it's not - I had a good time tonight."

"But?"

"No but," she smiles, tries to ease whatever hell she must have just put him through. "I have something for you."

"Oh?" He quirks an eyebrow, apparently going for leering but it falls a little flat. Her fault. She's nervous, and this is important, and he's picking up on it, getting nervous himself.

She lifts her hand, unfurls her fingers to reveal the thing she found behind the window:

the bullet that shot her.

He's silent, staring down at her hand.

She was much the same when she found it. She remembers, all too clearly, the smashed, misshapen thing, the bullet that rattled around in her chest and damaged her heart, remembers the thin slip of paper he'd wrapped around it:

_I promise. This will never happen again._

"That's for you, Kate." He tries to close her hand back around the metal, but she pulls away.

"No, Castle." She takes it by the black leather string, holds it up. "I'm giving it back to you."

"I thought it would help," he says quietly. "To have it. Like when Esposito showed you the rifle. I thought having it-" He shrugs and stares at the bullet.

"No, Castle." She cups the back of his neck, tugs him closer so she can drop it over his head; the bullet hangs low and she tucks it down his shirt, out of sight. "That's not why. Castle, listen to me. This will be the only bullet you take for me."

His eyes fly back to hers.

"Do you understand?"

"But, Kate-"

"You have to promise me. This is the last bullet you take for me."

He stares at her. "I can't."

"Castle." She grips his neck and leans forward, pressing her mouth to his cheek. "Please."

"If you put yourself in danger, Kate, I'm going to do everything I can-"

"I won't, remember? The murder board stays off. Not now. Not on purpose. Okay? Neither one of us."

His hand comes to curl around her cheek, his fingers brushing her ear, sliding into her hair. She reaches out and presses her palm to his chest, feels between their skin that bullet.

"And in the future, when you take it back up again. You'll listen to me?" he asks, something brittle and yet so hopeful in his voice. "When I come to you and warn you that everyone around this case is dead, they're all dying, you'll stop?"

"When that day comes, I'll stop."

"Then I'll never have to take another bullet," he whispers back, and his lips brush across hers, a promise and a warning.

* * *

><p>The walk back to the hotel is mostly silent, but he's not worried. It's a good silence, easy, ripe with meaning. Things are being said with the curl of her hand in his, the sway of her hips, the press of his shoulder against hers.<p>

It's a warm night and the hotel's doorman gestures them through the portal, giving a little inclination of his head. Kate's hand is loose in his as she presses the call button for the elevator, just their fingers laced together.

In the lift, he can't help wrapping his arms around her and holding her against him, breathing her in - that musk he remembers from the Christmas party at his place, the wild tang of cherry blossoms, and the rich scent of coffee. He finds his hand is buried in her hair, holding her close.

Kate angles her head down and opens her mouth against his jaw, touches her tongue to his skin. He shivers and finds that clever, inviting mouth, stroking her tongue with his, losing his good intentions until the elevator doors open.

She leads him down the hall to their suite, her body wrapped in black satin, skirt entirely too short, long legs so very appealing. He keeps a hand at her lower back as she releases his fingers to unlock the door, swiping the key card.

Once inside, he can't help crowding into her, arms around her waist, leaning towards her mouth even as the door slams behind them.

She presses her hand to his chest, stopping him, cupping the bullet. "You don't have to wear it every day. It's just. . .a promise, Castle."

He grins back at her, knowing she's delaying the inevitable. "I'm fine, Kate. I understand."

She nods. "I just don't want you to think we have to match. I've got issues but you don't need to carry them-"

"Kate." He grins, slides his hand up her back to her neck, fiddling with the hook at the top of her dress. "It's a new year."

She shivers and her eyes dilate, the hand at his waist curling. He releases the hook, thumbs the zipper, waiting on her. She slides her hand down his chest.

"Need some help getting out of this dress?" he prompts.

She stares at him; he loves the curl of her hair, natural and wild, half-pulled back, half trailing down her neck, over her shoulders. Castle reaches out and touches a lock that tumbles in front of her ear, pushes it back, kisses the beauty mark on her cheek at its sharp angle, then down to her jaw.

Sometimes he catches her watching him in the bullpen and she has that sly, smiling look on her face which she quickly subsumes, wipes away (the look he now knows is her _I love you _look) . And it's the same look he sees now when he pulls away from her cheek, and she doesn't bother to hide it.

"Unzip me, Castle."

Finally.

He breathes out, moves around behind her, slides the zipper down slowly, letting his mouth follow, sucking at the ridges of her vertebrae, nibbling. When his hand gets to the bottom of the zipper, he lets his thumb brush across the top of her black panties, sucks in a breath as she arches.

The deep curve of her back is too much; he crowds closer, slides both hands inside her open dress, around the flat plane of her stomach, fingers along her smooth skin. He skims her ribs, sliding up.

"Castle," she breathes, and he wants to see her face, those eyes, when she says his name like that again.

At the same time, he doesn't want to move from this warm, delicious spot. He kisses her shoulder blade, the tendon at her shoulder, her neck, sliding his hands around her waist and up her back. He buries one hand at her neck under her hair, moves around to look at her, trailing the back of his hand down her sternum, feeling the rise and fall of her chest.

Kate has her eyes closed, lashes dark against the curve of her cheek, mouth parted. Castle moves in to nibble her lips, feels the startled breath as she lifts to meet him, her chest pressing against his.

Her hair so soft against the back of his hand, at the sides of his face, her mouth like hot velvet, her breasts firm against his chest-

Forgetting, he slides his hand down her back, encounters only soft, sweet skin and the curve of her spine, skimming the band of her bra, the flare of her waist, the sudden scratch of lace.

"Castle," she says against his mouth, breaks away to look at him, her eyes so rich and dark and deep that he's lost.

He leans in towards her, his forehead against hers, tries to breathe. "Kate." He has to either get control of himself or-

"Don't stop."

He swallows, cups her jaw with his hands, taking another sip of her mouth, feels her fingers at his shirt, tugging it out of his pants, moving to his belt.

"Kate." It's not a warning, but maybe a plea. He needs that dress off. He needs her skin under his fingers again. He presses a hand to her lower back, pulls her hips flush with his, slips his fingers under the waistband of her lace panties.

"I love you," she says on a moan. "God, I love you. Don't stop."

His knees go weak; he stumbles and her arms go around him, as if to catch him. He can feel her laugh at his throat she nibbles at his skin. He's lost track of where he was, no longer suave, can only grab her by the neck and press his mouth to hers, hard and hot.

Her tongue battles with his, her hips arch into him, her fingers around his ears to hold him there. Castle breaks once, kisses her again, breaks it off again to breathe, ragged and rough, feels her shimmying against him, through half-slitted eyes sees the black dress falling to the floor.

"Kate." He breathes, mouth close to hers, cradles the back of her neck with a hand, lifts the other between them to place his fingertips at her scar, holding it all in. "I love you. I love you, Kate."

She must see the ghost of that day echo in his eyes, because her hand curls around the bullet at his chest, fingers warm at his skin, alive. "This year will be better, Castle. This year - we'll be more."

Kate steps in closer, her legs parting around his thigh, her hand sliding up his chest, her lips dangerous against his ear.

"Now take me to bed."


End file.
